Twisted Religion
by Miyamashi
Summary: I believe in...God...Father Almighty" His name was Mihael Keehl...Mihael the Orphan...Mello, and he lived, he loved, and he, like all men, died. This is his story. Mello-Centric, with some MelloXMatt. Reduxing and finishing.
1. Prelude and Our Father Edit

**Twisted Religion****  
By Miyamashi**

**Miya's Note: Hello! I apologize to those waiting for a new chapter of this story. After a long, long period of writer's block and business, I'm getting back to this. I was unhappy with a lot of the original story, so I'm going to be going back to the beginning and reduxing the entire thing. Cleaning up, adding things, and updating my writing to be more to my current standards. Then, I'll write the other chapters based on the new version. :D  
**

**To those new to the story, welcome! I'll spare you any lengthy explanation and just allow you to read the story. This is the first edited chapter. Watch for more updates, and then the other chapters, in the near future. **

**

* * *

**

**OUR FATHER**,

Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

**

* * *

**

The pain was like a knife, just as sudden, and just as deadly.

When that stabbing agony hit most people, they grasped at their chests, trying to dig into and claw out their hearts themselves before the fevered and deadly beating drove them mad in their last moments.

Mihael Keehl, however, clutched at his rosary, tears streaming down his cheeks like they hadn't in years, the last of his voice choked out by his own foaming saliva and chocolate-tinged bile.

_"I…believe in…God…Father Almighty…."_

* * *

**Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.**

It was a holy war, the radicals said. They called the Catholics idol-worshippers, heretics. They called them the sinners, and though _thou shalt not kill_, kill they did.

It was because of this that the Keehls died during church service, in the middle of their prayers.

Their son had snuck away from them in the midst of the Hail Marys. He had been afraid they'd see him do it, but he'd been wrong.

Their hearts and minds were on God.

The six-year-old had hidden away, crying, in the confessional. He had snapped the chain of his small new rosary and was ashamed, thinking that God would punish him for destroying such a holy relic. Even worse, the commandments told him to honor his father and mother, but he had broken their birthday gift to him instead.

It didn't matter that it had been an accident. In his mind's eye, Mihael could see Papa's frustration, and Mama's quiet disappointment. He held the tiny cross to his chest, staring down at the snapped thread and considering for a moment leaving to look for the prayer beads that were missing.

If he left, they might see him. However, if he stayed, they could follow the beads to his location. They would find him, and then they would know.

He was terrified of either possibility. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," came a confession without a priest, in a voice so shy and so frail that only God could hear. "Please, God. Don't be angry with me. Don't let Mama and Papa be mad."

As if in answer to his prayers came the assurance that his parents would never even know.

The explosion shook the building, causing the thin wooden walls of the confessional to shiver and creak and the child inside of it to scream. Although the new gaping cracks in the walls of the cathedral let in the cold winter air, the fires themselves heated those winds to burning temperatures, making the child's eyes sting and skin crawl. He was trapped, and as he cowered from the heat, the fires seemed to reach in to touch him as they painted glowing fleur-de-lis on his face through the ornately carved air-holes in the sinner's cage.

There were crashes, screams. The steeple bell rang out like a death-toll as the tower that enclosed it crumbled and fell. The terrified shouts and wails of everyone Mihael had held dear were how he had imagined the sounds of Hell.

But why? Why were they being punished? He had been the one to sin, not them.

As the screams began to fade away, new voices filled the air. The beating of feet on the ground and the rushing sound of pressurized water slowly took away that of crackling flame.

Mihael, by this time, had crouched back into the farthest corner of the confessional, underneath the wooden bench. The smoke had begun to make him light-headed, but still he prayed silently to the broken rosary in his hands, _"Oh, God, make it stop! Mama…Papa…I wanna see my Mama and Papa! Please don't let me die!" _

Even at such a young age, Mihael's prayers had always reached the ears of God, and the door of the confessional burst open. Strong, adult arms encircled the tiny, shivering boy protectively. The firefighter carried him out of the cathedral, over the rubble of the church, through smoke and dust and into the blinding sun. They said that he had been lucky - marveled over the fact that the corner with the confessionals had remained intact long enough to leave the child alive. A remarkable stroke of luck, they called it.

Mihael, on the other hand, thought to himself that it could have been nothing other than faith, because his prayers had been answered exactly as he had said them: He was alive, and he saw Mama and Papa once more, right before men zipped the body bags over their burnt faces.

He was given Mama's rosary, the only thing left almost miraculously unmarred amongst scorched clothing and flesh. It was cruel. Cruel that he had only this to remember them by. Cruel that it had to be a brother to the object that had killed them.

That day, Mihael Keehl truly became a God-fearing man. The Lord's message had become to him akin to that of genies in the "blasphemous" and "wicked" fairy tales that he'd read behind his papa's back:

"Be careful how you word your wishes, because they'll come true."

He wanted to blame God. He wanted to blame the trickery, the injustice. But he could only blame himself.

_"I broke it. This is all my fault. If only I hadn't snapped the chain. If only I hadn't been so afraid. If only I had been a better son…"_


	2. Thy Kingdom Come

**Thy Kingdom come…**

Mihael was no longer a Keehl, but an orphan.

For a year, he was shuffled back and forth between different orphanages and boarding houses. He spoke little, made no friends. He was lonely, ridiculed, and lost.

During the beginning of this, his only worldly possessions were the clothes on his back and the rosaries. The clothes, he cared little about, but the rosaries he held more dear to him than his own life, because they represented the family and the world he had lost. They were both a comforting physical companion to memories and a painful reminder of the burdens he bore.

Because of his rosaries and his prayers, Mihael was often forced to sit quietly and take the insults and the bullying from other children at the orphanages. While something in the back of his mind always pulled at him, urging him to fight back, his faith pleaded otherwise, and he had no choice but to hold back for fear of being struck down by God's wrath at any retaliation.

It was obvious from the start that Mihael the orphan did not fit in.

Perhaps this was why his parents had kept him so sheltered, he reassured himself. Out of love, they had kept him restricted to home and the cathedral. They'd taught him of spelling and math and those things at home, because school would have corrupted him. They'd kept him away from improper subjects, and far from the angry, hateful, sinful cruelty of other children.

Out of love, Mihael had never been allowed to simply be a child.

Out of love.

He had grown up with the blanketing love of his parents, and, now, with them gone, all he had to trust in was the all-powerful love of the Father, the Son, and the blessed virgin Mary.

Mihael was loved, even as the other children pulled his hair and called him names.

But, soon, he couldn't help but to begin to doubt. He couldn't help but to feel so utterly alone, that the prayers once again turned to pleas. "_Dear God, please let someone take me away from here. Please let me find a home."_


	3. Thy Will Be Done

**…Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.**

Far away, in England, an bright-eyed and brilliant teen pointed to a picture of a small boy with straight blond hair and said that he was the one.

"Are you sure, L?" asked an old man behind the boy, who sat curled up on the chair in front of the files from one of the many orphanages that he had been searching through to find the best. The boy in the picture smiled up at him shyly, next to a file with his rather impressive statistics from both his home-schooling and from various tests at his orphanage.

"Yes, Mr. Wammy. I…I think he would be perfect. I have a feeling."

The older man looked down, and noticed that L was looking at the picture more than the papers next to it, analyzing. "Would you like to meet him? I can arrange that."

"I would like that very much."

It wasn't long before Mihael saw the answer to his prayers and L got to meet the boy he had picked out to come with him back to England. Mihael liked L immediately, and L had no doubts upon meeting him that his hunches had been right. Though the children picked on the blond and said again and again that he was stupid, L could see differently. He could see the hidden brilliance within the boy's wide, strangely wild eyes.

Mihael said--for once, excitedly--to L (who always hunched over far enough that he was almost at eye level with the younger and shorter boy) that it was because his parents had taught him very well.

It was quite possibly the most exciting thing that Mihael had ever experienced when they boarded the plane to England. Though he knew what planes were from his studies, he had never been exposed to one in real life, and the size of Quillsh Wammy's private jet made his eyes go wide and his heart speed up with the thrill of something so new and amazing.

"Wow! Mr. Wammy has something like this?" he asked to his new friend.

L nodded. "He's a famous inventor."

"Wow!" Mihael said for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

L held his hand like a big brother--like his parents used to do--when they walked down the aisles to their seats. When Mihael sat, he couldn't help but to bounce up and down in the soft, cushy chair. L climbed up on the seat beside him, looking over his knees.

"Is that how you _sit_?" asked Mihael.

L nodded with a smile, his messy, black mane of hair bobbing as he did.

Mihael tried to sit like that, but his legs got tired very quickly, and he had so sit back down normally.

"_Why_ do you sit like that?" he asked.

L shrugged. "I don't like sitting. It makes me feel like I'm not doing anything, and Mr. Wammy tells me to always be productive. So if I kneel, I have to work to stay like that, and I don't get lazy."

"Don't you get tired, though?"

"Sometimes, but it's okay."

"What about sleep?"

"I don't like sleeping, either, so I try to stay awake for as long as I can. It's like a contest I have with myself. I stayed awake for three days straight once."

"_Wow._"

L giggled at the awestruck face Mihael had given him at that.

"I'm gonna try and stay awake all night tonight!" the younger chirped, but by halfway through the trip, the blond had already fallen asleep.


	4. Our Daily Bread

**Give us this day our daily bread…**

L nudged the blond awake before they arrived in England. Mihael opened his eyes to see his new "brother" leaning over the armrest with the stick of a lollipop hanging out of his mouth. "Do you like sweets?" L asked.

Mihael shrugged, rubbing his eyes groggily. "I don't know. My parents never let me have them."

L seemed rather taken aback at this, but offered up another lollipop, the stick dangling from between two fingers, to the boy next to him. Mihael took it cautiously.

"Are you sure it's okay? Mama and Papa said sweets were bad for me."

L smiled and closed Mihael's tiny fingers around the candy. The blond's eyes went from the sucker in his hands, to L's nodding, practically glowing face, and then went wide when the sugar touched his tongue.

"You like it?"

Mihael nodded, biting down on the lollipop, finishing it off almost as quickly as he'd started.

"Want more? Here, I'll let you pick something out." L held out a tray of sweets the stewardess had brought earlier.

Mihael looked at the tray with wonder, scanning over the various types of candy, entranced. "How many pieces can I have?"

"As many as you want. Mr. Wammy can always have the stewardess bring us more."

The child pored over the tray, marveling at the colorful foil and the array of shapes set out before him. Each of these was a new wonder, just waiting to be tasted, and Mihael couldn't help but to be a little excited and a little daunted at the same time. Everything was so new, and wonderful--too good to be true!

He held his hand over the tray, unsure of what to try next. L looked at him, and then at the candies, and then held one up to him. "These are some of my favorites."

When Mihael didn't take it, the older boy nudged it toward him. Mihael shook his head quickly. L prodded toward him again.

"I don't wanna take your favorite ones!" the blond cried back, pushing L's hand back down.

"Here, try them all," the teen reassured. "If you're worried about me, just take one of those. There are more."

The older could tell that the blond was trying to hold back a grin. L crouched a little closer, trying to get him to crack. Mihael's mouth turned upward slowly, and then there was that smile from the picture; the one that L had seen a piece of himself in, in the way it seemed shy and afraid to exist.

Sweets were all L really understood of childhood indulgences, and he wanted this boy to understand, too. He held the piece of candy that he loved back up, and nudged it once again toward the child, but the blond looked past his hand at a flat, squared piece in a plain, silver foil wrapper that had caught his eye for its simplicity amongst the more daring packaging of the others.

"What's this one?" Mihael held it up.

"Oh, you can have all of those. I prefer the strawberry over the chocolate."

Tiny hands picked out all of the chocolate pieces from the tray and piled them in their owner's lap, happy to have found something that wouldn't make him feel as if he were stealing from L. He unwrapped one and put it in his mouth. It melted on his tongue and sent his senses reeling. As good as the lollipop had been, there was no way it could ever have compared to _this_.

If his parents could have seen his face, they probably would have banned him from ever touching chocolate again, telling him it was the devil's sweet temptation. But it wasn't Mama and Papa who were with him, but L, and he was encouraging Mihael to continue eating.

At first, the boy considered whether this were a test from God to see how well he could hold up if Satan tried to pull him off the path of righteousness, but with each bite, Mihael was more able to convince himself that this was all God's will. Yes, if he were never meant to have chocolate, he would not be sitting here in the jet. He would be with his parents. The chocolate, like L himself, was there to comfort him, and he would take any comfort he could get.

Mihael was an addict from the moment the chocolate first touched his lips.


	5. And Forgive Us

…**and forgive us…**

When they arrived in England, and later at the Wammy's House for the Gifted that Mihael would soon call his new home--prerequisite "Wow"s at every step, from the new country, to the limousine, to the Wammy's House itself--L crouched down in front of the boy, serious, as Wammy went inside to start preparations for the House's new inhabitant. The child looked around, unable to keep his concentration long on L's face, and was comforted by the crosses that adorned the top of the fences around the House before he finally gave his full attention to the man in front of him.

"Mihael, your new home is a very special place."

"Really?"

"Yes, and you have been picked to come here because you, yourself, are special."

"_Really?_"

L nodded, and Mihael couldn't help but to trust the older boy's dark, wide eyes. "There are some sacrifices to be made when one is special, though. Here, you are going to be learning how to use your abilities to their fullest. You are a very smart child, and you are going to be meeting a lot of other children like yourself, all of whom are working very hard, like I hope you will, to be like the brightest."

"Who's the brightest?"

"I am."

Mihael put his hands on his hips, and cocked his head. "Oh yeah? What's eight million times three?"

"Twenty-four million."

"I knew that."

L laughed. "I'm sure you did."

"I did!"

"I believe you."

The two stared at each other for a moment before the younger shrugged, a slight bit of nervousness creeping into his posture. "Is that all? We just have to be smart? What if I'm not as smart as the other kids? What then? Will I have to leave?"

L placed his hands on the boy's shoulders, only his fingertips touching, delicately. "Mr. Wammy and I encourage all of the children here to be their best. Just work as hard as you can in your studies. We won't turn you away, though, no matter what. Once you are here, this is home."

"I'll do my best, Mr. L! I promise!" Mihael clasped his hands in front of his chin with a smile. "Even better, I'll be the best of them all! I wanna be like you!"

L's cheeks tinged slight, barely-noticeable pink, and he smiled slightly, shyly. "I hope you will, Mihael."

"Is that all? Just try our hardest, be smart?"

"There is one more thing."

The blond made a small, questioning sound.

"Wammy's house isn't a normal orphanage, as I'm sure you've figured out. Unlike other orphanages, it's not open to public records, there are no people coming around to adopt the children, and we have to take certain measures to make sure the progress of you and the others does not get out into the open."

"Why?"

"Because you are the key to our future. If a crisis grips the world, we're going to need somebody smart to save us. Mr. Wammy built this orphanage after he saw my potential, hoping that he could find other children who could follow in my footsteps if I ever had to put myself in danger."

The smile disappeared off of Mihael's face. "Danger? Why would you be in danger?"

"There are a lot of bad people in the world, Mihael. You know this. I've read your records." He thought to tread lightly at what he was about to say, and then decided against it, knowing he would have preferred frank honesty as a child. "I know about the explosion, and about the people who did it. Mr. Wammy wants me to start working in a few years, once I've gotten a little older, to fight against people like that, and bring them to justice. There's a chance that people worse than the ones who killed your parents could come along, and people like us--smart people, geniuses--are the only ones who will be able to stop them, because the worst people in the world, and the best, are the ones with the minds to do what they care most about, be that good or evil. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Mihael, thankfully coping well enough to be seemingly unfazed by the mention of his parents, "but I don't want anything to happen to you. You need to work hard to be smarter, too, so that you can keep yourself safe, okay? I'll pray for you, Mr. L!"

"Thank you." L stood, but remained slightly hunched as always. "Now that you know the dangers involved, will you live at the Wammy's house? If not, I can send you back to a regular orphanage…"

"No!" Mihael latched on to the older boy's waist. "I don't wanna go back there! I wanna stay here! I wanna stay with you, and learn to be smarter, and keep you safe!"

L pried the younger from him gently, lending a consoling touch to the top of the blond's head. "Mihael, it's alright. You can stay. But because this is not a regular orphanage, we have to take certain precautions. Your records, right now, can be traced to this place. If people were to learn what we were doing here, the bad people may come to stop us, and they may hurt you, and me, and Mr. Wammy, and the other children. To keep you completely safe, we have to get rid of all of your records. To the rest of the world, this place and the children inside of it cannot exist."

Mihael looked up. "What do I have to do?"

"You have to give up your name. You'll get a new name, and from now on, that's who you'll be. It's like a code name."

"Is that why you're called L?"

L smiled at that, but didn't respond.

"What's my name, then?"

"We haven't decided. Most of the children pick their own names, some have us pick for them. Most of the time, they keep the first letter the same."

"Can I just be M? It sounds so cool that you're just a letter."

"I think the other children with M names might get jealous if you get to be like me and they don't, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess." One tiny foot scuffed its toe into the ground.

"Is there anything your mother or father used to call you?"

Mihael stared at his feet. "No. Only my name." He then looked up, new hope and a rekindled delight in his eyes. "Mr. L…"

"It's okay. L is fine."

"L, will you name me?"

The lanky teenager laughed again, something he had been doing more often since Quillsh Wammy had started bringing these children into his life--these children that were too young to be called friends, but who still presented a welcome presence at the House--and scrutinized the young boy before him.

"Hmm," L said, tapping his knuckle on the bridge of his nose. "Hmm."

Mihael's large, expectant eyes seemed to have temporarily stopped blinking.

"You're not going to like it, I don't think," said the older after what seemed to the younger enough time for him to have grown wrinkled and grey. "I think my mind may be preoccupied, I'm afraid."

"What is it?"

"Mello."

"Mello?"

"Mello. Kind of like marshmallows."

"That's silly."

"It is, and it makes me a little hungry."

The boy giggled at that, a light, small, and impish laugh that sounded almost as if it had never passed the child's lips before. "You're funny, L. Do you like marshmallows?"

"Very much."

"Okay then, it's set! Mello it is! If you like marshmallows, and you wanna name me after them, that must mean you like me, right?"

The dark-eyed and dark-haired, but white-pale teen couldn't help but to grin at that, his shaded eyes soft and a blush further breaking apart and contrasting with the lightness of his skin.

But then it hurt him, suddenly, like it had with all the other children, that he knew what this Mihael--this Mello--had faced and would have to face. It hurt him to think of the horrors the boy had seen; of the competition, the testing, the hard work, and the danger he would meet that would tear his delicate light-sugar innocence apart. He knew that what Quillsh Wammy was doing was cruel to children; wrong to crush childhood away to breed genius drones with one goal and another man's ideal of justice ingrained into their minds, and it hurt him more to think that, despite how much the children looked up to L himself and trusted him, he agreed with Wammy--agreed with _him_, and, thus, betrayed _them_--in that, maybe, taking these orphans, who had already had their purities shattered and their thoughts subconsciously filled and blinded with a want for both revenge for what was unfairly taken from them and the acceptance of something to replace what they had lost, was the only way to create the future the world needed.

It hurt him, too, that he could never shake the stubborn, vile thought that, this, itself was justice: To deal upon the youth what had been dealt so unfairly upon him when his parents had given him up--died in his eyes, though living in body--to a man who wanted him for his mind, not his humanity.

But L was now a role model and a father figure to Mello just like Wammy had been to him, and he knew that he would be cherished in the boy's heart like God seemed to be, just like the inventor had been and was still in his own, despite the anger and the resentment that he could never force to go away.

And Mello smiled, still, and it comforted L's weary soul.


	6. Our Trespasses

**…forgive us our trespasses…**

After a couple of days living in Wammy's House, Mello realized very quickly that exceedingly smart children were no better than any other children. In fact, after being the subject of much hair-pulling, name-calling, and general teasing and taunting, the blond noticed that, as exceedingly smart children were more adept at all of the above, they were far nastier than children of lesser intelligences could ever hope to be.

Even worse was the fact that, as L was almost always busy studying, testing, and otherwise preparing for his future, Mello was usually left feeling quite alone among the absolute raging _terrors_ with whom he co-inhabited the House.

The blond was understandably irked by the fact that, though all he wanted was to be left quite alone with his books and his prayers, he was constantly being bothered by other, often older children, who always seemed to be finding something wrong with him.

Nonetheless, Mello couldn't help but to smile when L confronted him one day to discuss his progress in the House's private classes. It had been more than a couple of weeks since Mello and L had last been able to sit down and talk face-to-face, so that, alone, lifted the younger child's spirits, but when L smiled very proudly and told Mello that he had grown quickly to be the best of the entire House, including out of those in classes higher than his, the blond first felt shocked disbelief, and then was suddenly lifted into a state of high elation.

"I am? I did it?" Mello almost squeaked in excitement.

The way L beamed at him was almost enough to make up for everything else, and the rest of that day saw what seemed to be a new Mello.

After far too long being ridiculed by the other children, being recognized by the man Mello looked up to more than anything in the world was enough to make the child take a different look at life and the world in which he lived. The other children were competing for L's attention, too. They must have _known_ that Mello was special, and gotten jealous. That had to be it, of course! It wasn't Mello who had something wrong with him, it was _them_!

It became quickly apparent, however, that being more special than everyone around you was just as lonely as being the joke of the class, and even though the blond didn't want to lose L's approval or attention, he almost (maybe just a little bit) wanted to be _normal_, or at least as close to it as any gifted child could be.

Once Mello had been lifted past his fear of the other children, he began to watch them and realized just how different he was from them, and how truly isolated. Sadness marring his newfound bliss, Mello reached a tiny hand into his pocket and felt for his Mama's rosary--still far too long for him to wear without its hanging dangerously between his legs when he sat down--and hoped and prayed to God that even if he wasn't accepted by all of the children that he could at least find one friend.

But as he looked around, each time he would try to lock eyes with someone in hopes of at least a small glimmer of acceptance, the other child would look away, embarrassed, it seemed, to look at him, and even though he had been temporarily relieved by the idea that he was the best of the best, the fact that the cruelty of the other children didn't cease began to bring him back down, and the need to be accepted when L wasn't around compounded farther and farther each day.

One day, however, Mello saw a new glimmer of hope. There was one child who, though he seemed to have friends of his own, did not follow his companions in their ceaseless torturing of the House's Number One. The boy Mello watched seemed about the same age as himself, was thin, had almost awkwardly (almost unnaturally) bright red hair, barely ever seemed to speak to anyone, and usually sat against some wall, in some corner, or on some far, cushy seat and occupied himself with various electronic games--so unlike the other children, but so accepted like one of their own.

This boy had to be him, Mello thought. He had to be a friend, and it only took one more small thing to assure the blond that it was true; that God had shown this boy to him for a reason.

"Hey, Matt! Are you ever gonna stop and come play with us?" called one of the meaner children to the boy.

Mello's ears seemed to perk up at that call. Yes, a familiar name: Matt…Matthew…an apostle in the midst of the damned.

And, suddenly, Mello felt more determined than he had ever felt. He would make a friend, his first friend…

But how?

_"Dear God," _the blond prayed that night, pulling Mama's rosary out and holding it to his heart, _"I don't think I have the strength to talk to Matthew myself. I'm…scared. What if he turns out to be like everyone else? God, please let him wanna talk to me. I just want a friend, if that's not too much to ask. Please….amen."_

Mello hung his mother's rosary on its place on his headboard, right next to the broken one he had tied back together with its knot replacing the missing prayer bead.

A few rooms over and a number of nights later, Matt laid on his stomach in bed, playing his newest game. He sighed, smiled, and took off the goggles he had taken to wearing and threw them on his end table.

The character he was playing ran into an enemy and lost its last life, so he shut off the game and flipped over onto his back. Usually, losing would have annoyed him, but Matt had been rather blissfully distracted during the few days prior.

"Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow," he said, and closed his eyes to let in sleep.

The next morning, after breakfast, Mello found himself disturbingly nervous. He felt, as usual, that people were watching him, but something felt…wrong. In the background of the House chatter, Mello caught a bit of dark laughter, and then Matt's name.

"Do it, Matt! Go ahead!" they seemed to be saying, and Mello chanced a look in that direction, to see Matt with the children who seemed to be his friends, being shoved…in Mello's general direction.

Could this be it? Could this be what he'd prayed for?

Matt, who wasn't wearing his goggles that day, noticed that the blond was looking at him quizzically, and his eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and he ducked back behind one of the others.

Mello seemed to feel a little braver by the fact that Matt seemed as nervous as he was, and stepped a little closer. The boy Matt had hidden behind grabbed the redhead's shirt, moved the gamer in front of him, and whispered something in his ear, a wicked look on his face.

Any hope Mello had was dashed. This couldn't be good. They were just trying to get Matt to make fun of him like they did.

Matt nodded, stepped forward, and Mello's heart jumped in fear.

_Oh no. Not him, too._

Matt's friends were snickering. The slight spectacle seemed to attract some of the other children, and they created a wide circle around the group.

_This is gonna be the worst…_

Matt stepped forward again, and seemed to be trying to smile. Mello was still as stone, but his heart was beating extremely quickly in his embarrassment.

"Do it! Do it!" the others chanted.

Mello geared up for the most terrible scenarios he could imagine. He readied himself to duck out of the way of a punch or to block his ears from a particularly vicious insult, but when Matt leaned forward quite unexpectedly and kissed him--a light, quick peck on the lips--Mello was slightly more than unprepared.

The house erupted in laughter. Mello's eyes almost bugged straight out of his head as he grabbed at the cross in his pocket. Matt's cheeks turned nearly as red as his hair. The entire situation turned into a mangled jumble of hysterics and voices.

_"Matt, I can't believe you fell for it!"_

_"I'm sorry! Please, don't be mad at me! I just…"_

_"You really thought that nasty little weasel was…"_

_"I didn't mean to…if I offended you or something…I'm so sorry, I just thought…"_

Then, suddenly, everything made sense as one of the meanest kids in the group and Matt's voices mixed.

_"You really thought he was a girl!"_

_"I just thought…you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen…the most beautiful girl in the world!"_

There was a moment of very abrupt, painful understanding. Matt and Mello looked at each other, the redhead taking in every small detail of the blond, now that they were closer together.

"You're not…"

"No."

"So, you're a…you're a boy, then?"

Mello nodded, his mouth open wide enough that it looked as if his bottom jaw might just fall off.

At the new wave of laughter and taunts, the redhead began to visibly cringe, his eyes wet with traces of tears.

"You're so dumb, Matt! I can't believe you fell for it! He isn't even pretty!"

"Shut up!" Matt yelled back, starting to really cry.

"That little, ugly brat isn't even worth your attention! I'm embarrassed to even be seen around you, Matt!" said another kid.

"Ewww, Matt's gay!"

"Matt likes boys!"

"Matt's a queer!"

Mello felt powerless. All he could do was watch as the other kids pointed fingers and laughed, insulting them both with their words.

"I thought you guys were supposed to be my friends…" Matt said, timidly, and Mello felt that he was probably the only one who heard him.

Maybe friends weren't such a good thing, after all.

"Break it up! What's going on here?" came the voice of Roger, the House's caretaker when Mr. Wammy couldn't be around.

As the circle broke up, Matt took the chance to make a run for it. Mello watched for a second, and then followed, to the taunts and catcalls of the others. "The weasel wants Matt to kiss him again! What a faggot!"

"Hey," was all Mello could think to say as he peeked in through Matt's bedroom door.

"Go away."

"I'm sorry. They're pretty mean, huh?"

"…yeah."

The blond opened the door, stepped in, and shut it again behind him. "If it makes you feel any better, I get made fun of all the time."

"Aren't you mad at me?"

Mello shrugged. "I dunno. I was actually kinda relieved. At least you're not gay, right? I don't know how I could have dealt with it if you were."

"Yeah, but I thought you were a _girl_."

"Well, I'm kinda used to that by now. I used to get a lot of people in Cathedral who would tell my Mama and Papa what a cute daughter they had. And then the other kids pretty much wherever I go make fun of me because I have 'girly hair' and stuff, and they pull on it."

"Why don't you just cut it? That could have saved _me_ a lot of trouble, you know."

"Well, that's how Mama liked it, and…" The blond looked at his toes, grinding one foot into the ground.

"…Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay."

Matt rubbed his eyes, sniffled a little, and then weakly tried to smile. "I don't think I can ever show my face out there again."

"You usually wear goggles, right? Will that help?"

"I don't need goggles. I need a paper bag."

"Why do you wear those, anyway?"

"It's kind of embarrassing."

"You_kissed_ me. If embarrassing was a problem, you think I'd be here now?"

Matt actually laughed at that. "Well, my friends…or, the guys I used to hang out with, I guess, used to make fun of me for being a crybaby. I didn't know what to do about it, so I noticed that a lot of cool game characters wear goggles, and I started wearing them, too, to cover up my eyes so they couldn't see if I was crying. After that, they stopped making fun of me, and decided I wasn't too much of a pansy anymore to be friends with them."

"That's terrible."

"What about you? You probably think I'm some kind of idiot."

"For what?"

"For everything."

"Nah, I could tell from the first time I saw you that you weren't stupid."

"You…saw me before? You noticed me?"

The blond nodded, finally deciding to move away from the door and sit down on the chair in front of Matt's rather cluttered desk. "I've never had a friend before, and I saw how you seemed so popular, even though you seem different from all of them. I really admired you for that. I wanted to be like you, and I really wanted to be your friend, too."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm sure not popular anymore. And I don't really have any friends left, I don't think."

Mello seemed almost as if he were about to get right back up out of the chair and leave, but he forced himself to stay, though he hung his head, unable to bring himself to make eye contact. "I'll understand if you don't wanna ever talk to me again. I know I kinda ruined everything for you, and I don't think you'll be able to get any of your friends back if you hang around with someone like me." The blond dug in one pocket, and pulled out a small bar of chocolate, unwrapping it and nibbling on the corner as if it would protect him from rejection.

"I don't want them back! They can eat dirt, for all I care!"

Mello looked up, puzzled. "Why? Isn't being popular a good thing?"

"They knew for weeks that I thought you were cute and all, and not a single one of 'em bothered to tell me! They all thought it was funny that I was so hung up on you, even though…you know."

"Yeah. You know, I prayed that you would wanna talk to me, Matthew. I mean, I didn't exactly expect what happened, but you talked to me, right?"

There were a few questions that ran through Matt's head at that--about Mello's religion, about the fact that Mello had wanted to talk to him enough to pray about it--but he finally settled on something totally different. "Matthew? My name's Matt."

"Matt's short for Matthew," the slightly older boy said bluntly, as if this would surely convince Matt that he had been wrong about his own name.

"Not for me. I'm just Matt. L named me."

Mello smiled at that, relieved. He had been disconcerted at first by the idea that his apostle theory had been debunked, but if L had named Matt, it was alright. That meant that L trusted the redhead. If L had trusted him, Mello would, too. He puffed up proudly. "L named me, too. I'm Mello."

Both children went quiet. Matt looked down for a second, not quite sure what to do. Should he shake Mello's hand? They had just formally introduced themselves, so that was what was polite, right? But, on the other hand, they had already experienced a much more…abrupt consummation to their friendship.

"So now what?" Mello asked, his mouth wound into a crooked line as he noticed the awkward silence that had taken over the room.

Matt smiled widely. "…You like video games?"

It seemed God worked in very strange ways, because, somehow, what could easily be considered the most mortifying event in Matt's life helped him to find the best friend he'd ever had, while allowing him to give the gift of true friendship to someone who had never had a companion at all, and within months, more very interesting events turned Matt and Mello into a duo to be reckoned with.

"Oh, look." drawled one of the House bullies that Matt had used to call his friend. "It's the weasel and his boyfriend."

"I'm gonna hit him one of these days, I swear," said the redhead, clenching his fist.

"Don't even bother. He's not worth it," replied Mello coolly.

"How do you _do_ that, Mello? I still don't get how you can stay so calm all the time!"

"I have God to keep me sane."

"Yeah, that's what you keep telling me, but I still think it's a bit hard to be supported by someone you can't even _see_."

The bully, who was usually fine with just a taunt, had decided that day, however, that he really wanted a reaction from his victims. "Yo, Matt. You gonna be a pansy like the weasel and hide behind some invisible friend? Why don't you stand up and fight like a man?"

"Leave him alone," retorted Mello dully. "If you're gonna make fun of someone, make fun of me."

"Hey, Matt! You have to be protected by a little girly boy now, huh?"

"That's a _little_ better," said Mello to the bully, pushing Matt behind him. "But you're still picking on him, or did you not hear me when I told you not to? And, yeah, I may be girly, but at least I'm not so stupid that I have to pick on younger kids to feel like I'm worth something."

A couple of other kids in the room began to laugh.

Matt stood still. "Mello, let's go, before I lose my cool."

"Shut up!" yelled the bully to the onlookers, and the room went silent. "Okay, weasel. You're asking for it."

"Mello,_let's go._"

"You can't do anything to me, Braeden! You can't hurt me!"

There was a chorus of impressed "Oooh"s throughout the room. The air became tense, expectant.

Matt was becoming very uncomfortable.

"You wanna bet I can't, ya little wimp? And that's Brad to you!"

The heads in the room turned to Brad, and then to Mello, who was simply smiling calmly. "I'll pray for you, Braeden."

Brad began to laugh.

"Mello, please. Let's go. I don't wanna get him started. He's older than you, and bigger. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"Yeah, your boyfriend's right, Barbie. You're gonna get hurt if you don't back down right now."

"_Try me._" said Mello, pulling his Mama's rosary out and crossing his chest.

"You gonna pray I don't break your scrawny little neck?" hissed Brad as he stepped forward.

Then, he made a mistake: He snatched the rosary from Mello's hold.

Without even thinking, Mello drew his hand back, balled it into a fist, and punched Brad, hard, in the face.

The bully grabbed at his nose with a screech and dropped the rosary, tripping to the ground as well. Mello grabbed the cross from the floor and backed up quickly. The blond watched with wide eyes as blood began to flow between the bully's fingers.

"You broke his nose!" Matt whispered as loudly as he could to his friend.

Mello dropped to his knees and started to pray.

There was a long moment where the House went silent, then Brad stood up as quickly as he could and turned away. "I'm gonna tell Roger!" he yelled, muffled and nasal, through the blood running over his mouth.

The children watching stared at Mello. The blond stopped in his prayers for a second, and cracked open his eyes.

Matt starting laughing. "Did you see his face? Mello, you just totally kicked his butt! Brad! You broke _Brad_'s nose! I didn't know you had it in ya'!"

"Matt, that's not something to be proud of! God frowns down on…"

"You're so weird. Just admit that you took down the biggest bully in the House! You're like some kinda hero!"

Mello looked around. He looked down at the cross in his hand. He looked down at the bit of blood on his knuckles. He looked up toward Heaven.

He started, quietly at first, to laugh, and then broke out into all-out guffaws, more at how silly he realized he looked than anything.

"Do you find what you did funny, Mello?" said Roger from right behind him, Brad clutching to the leg of the caretaker's pants, sniffling awkwardly. The laughter stopped.

"And, you, Matt. What do you have to say for yourself?"

It was then that some of the children who had been bullied by Brad and his group found the courage to stand up for themselves, and though Mello (and Matt with him) got into a little bit of trouble, it wasn't as much as expected, because at least four of their peers defended them.

From that moment, Mello was untouchable, and because of him, Matt was, too. Not only was Mello the grand "slayer of evil", as Matt liked to jokingly call him, but he had quickly become the idol of the house. The blond settled into a kind of fatherly position, and took over the job of helping the younger children and breaking up fights when L couldn't be around, earning himself an even more special place within his hero's heart.

"Ow! Don't! It hurts!" cried a young brunette girl whose arm was being twisted by an older boy, and Mello was there to stand up against the oppressor. All it took was a look, and even the bravest, most burly of bullies would back down.

It was almost a year later, after Mello had grown up and very comfortable with his position and the rewards that went with it (including almost limitless supplies of praise and chocolate), that word finally got out that he was also the top student in Wammy's House

Matt, as Mello's best friend, automatically reaped a lot of his benefits, but, for reasons then unknown to the blond, Matt had suddenly begun to seem…miserable.

"What's wrong?" asked Mello one evening, after dinner.

Like every other time before, Matt answered with a dismissive, "Nothing."

And that was all.

Mello didn't understand. He didn't get it at all, and it hurt him. Since he had gained his relatively newfound fame and grown busier, he had become more distanced from God, but this was enough to prompt him to pick up the rosary and pray again.

"_I don't know what's wrong with Matt. He's my best friend, but he won't even talk to me about it. I know I haven't been good about talking to you much anymore, but God, please help me to understand why he's been so distant._"

Though God had been ignored for some time, it seemed he was still there when Mello needed him, and he answered.

A few days later, a new child came to the House.


	7. As We Forgive

**…as we forgive…**

They said that Near was a prodigy.

Even though he was two years younger than Mello, he started making waves from the moment he arrived at the House. All the tests said he was a genius. He did work from his own grade level as though it were nothing, and work from the higher levels with ease.

Within a month, Near was already showing signs that he would probably usurp Mello from his top spot in no time.

Matt, for the first time, grew afraid of his own best friend.

"I hate him!" Mello yelled one day, after he had watched L walk right past him to talk to Near. The blond visibly pouted and took a rather large, angry bite of his chocolate bar. Matt, who was sitting on the bed next to him, could feel the palpable rage in the air around the blond, and scooted away.

Near was a small, immaculate, and white-haired child who barely ever talked to the other children. When he did talk, it was usually in short, blunt statements that often unintentionally came across as being a little rude. Rumors had it that Near had come from a broken family, and that his parents had died very horrible deaths right in front of him. Other rumors, which also explained that Near had a strange condition called "albinism" that few of the children other than Mello and Matt understood, said that Near wasn't really an orphan at all, but that he had been abandoned by his family as a freak.

At first, Mello had tried to befriend Near. It wasn't that the child downright refused the offer, but Near hadn't exactly reacted in the most personable of manners, unsure of what to say to this strange, older child who had approached him.

"I asked if you wanted to go outside and play," said Mello, obviously getting annoyed as Near looked at him confusedly.

"I think I prefer this puzzle over your company," said Near rather bluntly, and it was as if he had hit Mello upside the head.

Near, who could comprehend a book at a tenth grade level, could not understand why the blond seemed so upset.

The albino also garnered a remarkably large amount of attention from the adults in the House, including L, because he had signs of an even stranger condition than his physical one, a psychological disorder called autism that Mello researched when he heard about it, but which didn't, the blond thought, excuse Near's behavior. Plus, as autistic children required a large amount of care, Mello was generally pushed to the side as L, Wammy, and Roger tended to Near's needs.

Though Near, himself, wanted nothing of the sort, the other children in the House were very impressed with his progress, and often gave him a lot of compliments; compliments that, until Near's arrival, had been reserved for Mello.

It wasn't long before the blond who had once been the top out of his peers was reduced to bearing the title of "Second-best", and he was understandably jealous.

The biggest blow to Mello's ego was actually due to a misunderstanding. L had come into the House to discuss Near's progress with him. Afterward, Mello, missing his idol's doting, tugged on L's shirt sleeve to get his attention. L looked down. Mello smiled up at him.

L's expression was sad, his deep-set eyes wide, dark, and expressionless. L did not smile back. He only ruffled Mello's hair absentmindedly, and walked on.

Mello's heart broke in two at that moment. To him, this was utter rejection. To him, L had brushed him off in disappointment and shame.

_"I told him I would be the best, and I failed. He hates me."_

In reality, L was simply tired. He rubbed a knuckle against the already bruised, sensitive skin under his eyes, and daydreamed of the true dreams that he couldn't have. He was getting close to the day when he would embark on his journey into the real world as a detective, and he had slept only a few, scattered hours that week. His meeting with Near had been short, and Near had been as unenthusiastic as he felt, although the child was so obviously brilliant. When Mello had stopped him on his way to a nap that he wasn't even sure if Wammy would let him have, L had felt vaguely affectionate toward the blond, but didn't have the energy to show it properly.

He would have to overcome being tired, next, L thought to himself as he walked out the door. It would do no good to save time by not sleeping if it made him less efficient.

Mello watched his hero go, completely ignorant of L's struggles with fatigue. Watching the door close behind the black-haired teen seemed as much of a blow as if St. Peter had closed the Pearly Gates in his face, and the burn in his eyes where the tears had started to well made him feel as if he had sunken through the clouds above and fallen into the Fires.

Near had just finished an extremely complex puzzle and needed something new to occupy his time and his hands. He dumped the puzzle pieces on the ground and stood without bothering to clean them up. As he walked into the next room, he passed by Mello, whose face was shielded by the shadow that his hair cast.

"I wish you would just disappear," said the blond darkly, still staring intently at the floor, his hands clenching into fists hard enough that his nails dug into his palms.

Near stopped and turned to Mello, his face expressionless as he blinked silently and twirled a curl of white hair around one finger.

"What are you looking at? Didn't you hear me? I hate you, and I want you to just go away and never come back."

All Near did was make a small sound in the back of his throat, continue twirling his hair, and tilt his head slightly to the side.

Mello looked up, the anger clearly showing in his damp eyes. It was not the look of an eight-and-a-half year old boy, but one filled with enough hurt and rage to fill any grown man.

Near, who did not understand emotion, could not comprehend the meaning behind that look, but it reminded him of a feral cat that had gotten into the House yard one day and that had bitten him when he had tried to touch it. From his experience with the cat, Near thought it best to simply not react to Mello as he had to the creature, and though he knew better than to approach the other boy, he could not bring himself, out of sheer curiosity at the strangeness of that look, to walk away.

Locking eyes with Near and getting no reaction out of the younger boy, Mello was infuriated. How _dare_ he? How dare this stupid _child_, who had taken everything from him, just stare at him with that same, passive look?

Near learned quickly that, when it came to feral animals, it was best to leave well enough alone.

The albino was on the ground in seconds, a screaming Mello above him. "Cry! I wanna see you cry, you spoiled brat!"

"You're the one who's crying," said Near plainly.

Matt, hearing the commotion, had rushed out of his room just in time to grab Mello by the arms and stop him from really hurting the young prodigy.

Mello broke free from the grip, shoved his friend roughly out of the way, stormed into his room, and slammed the door behind him.

Matt looked down at Near, confused and hurt by what had just happened. Had his best friend, his own personal hero, and the nicest, most understanding person he had ever known just become the same as the bullies that Matt had called his friends _before_ Mello had come along?

No, he had to make it right. Mello would listen to him. He took one last, sad glance at Near, apologized in place of the blond, and followed Mello to his room, knocking meekly on the door.

"Go away!" came the angry voice from behind the door, followed by the sound of stifled sobs.

"Mello, it's me." Matt tried to open the door, but it was locked. "Please let me in. I just wanna talk."

When there was no reply, Matt felt through his pockets, and found what he was looking for. "Mello, I'll give you chocolate. It'll make you feel better," he said, holding up the slightly melted bar that he had grabbed from an earlier kitchen escapade, and which he had meant to give to Mello anyway.

The silence was intense for a moment, until there was a light "click", and the door cracked open, one reddened eye and a shock of straight, blond hair visible behind it.

Matt held up his peace offering, and the door opened the rest of the way to let him in. Mello snatched the bar from his hand and closed the door behind him, re-locking it as he did so.

The only sound for an awkward minute was that of ripping foil. Mello plopped down on the bed beside where Matt had already sat down, and mauled the bar with his teeth.

The redhead looked at his friend. He had been seeing Mello angry a lot lately, and it worried him enough, but the slightly older boy's eyes were bloodshot and more piercing an aqua-blue than usual, tears clinging to the long lashes around them. Mello's face was streaked with moisture, and wayward strands of normally smooth and tidy hair stuck to his cheeks.

Matt had never seen Mello cry before, and to him, it seemed an unreal, impossible event.

As if reading his mind, Mello spoke, his voice harsh and cracking. "I never wanted you to see me like this."

"You wanna use my goggles?"

Mello looked at him and seemed to be trying to force a bit of an upward curve into his lips, but those lips only twitched a little, and then turned abruptly back downward.

"Nobody understands," said the blond despondently.

"I do," seemed the right thing to say back.

"I hate him. I hate him so much."

"I know."

"No you don't. You can't possibly understand."

Matt took the goggles away from his eyes, letting them sag down around his neck, and looked at his companion openly. "Mello, who do you think was the best before you came along?"

The blond's eyes widened, and a knot formed in his stomach. When it dawned on him what Matt was saying, regret pierced his chest.

When Mello said nothing, Matt began to explain. "Before I knew it was you, I was so mad at the person who had beaten me. I never talked about it, because I always thought you'd laugh at me. It made me really angry, too, that nobody ever told me who it was. I felt like I had the right to know, but L kept telling me he had to keep it a secret. He probably knew we were friends, and didn't want me to hate you."

Mello's voice was almost too quiet to hear. "Do you?"

"No. When I found out it was you, it really upset me, because I kind of felt like you betrayed me, but after a while, I started to realize that you deserved it. I saw how hard you always worked to keep your grades high, and I was glad for you."

Mello hung his head. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You didn't know. And, beside, now it doesn't matter anymore, not with Near here." The redhead cracked a bit of a pained smirk.

"…yeah."

Matt looked at the wall above Mello's headboard. Both rosaries hung there, untouched for some time but unmarred by dust. Matt reached up and gently pulled down the smaller, children's rosary from its spot, and held it in his hands for a moment, running his fingers over the beads and the small knot where Mello had tied it back together, before handing it to his friend.

"That's the wrong one," said Mello, though he took it anyway.

The look Matt gave him was filled with a wisdom that far preceded his age, and Mello truly appreciated Matt's intelligence for the first time, knowing that he could always count on his friend as an equal. "No it's not," Matt said, knowingly. "It's broken, like you."

With the tiny rosary still clutched in his hand, Mello threw his arms around Matt's shoulders, buried his face in the nape of the redhead's neck, and began to sob again.

Matt, at first, was unsure of what to do with his hands, and then he wrapped them around Mello's body (so _thin_, he thought to himself), rested his lips on blond hair, held on tight to the black cloth of Mello's shirt, and let him cry.

Only a few days later, L left the Wammy's House for good to fulfill his destiny as a detective and to return only on sporadic trips between cases. He left without ever knowing what an impact a careless act had made on the blond who had so touched his heart years before--his heart that had since grown cold and empty in his blind determination to overcome everything, including his own human weaknesses, to the point where he had foregone even his own well-being and personal hygiene.

L hoped that Wammy--no, he had to call him Watari now for safety's sake--was proud of him.

Because of the potential dangers that L would be facing outside of House walls, it had become time for him to pick an heir. He looked at both Watari and Roger, and knew without their saying who they expected him to pick. After all, Near was quite possibly the most ingenious child of his age that any of them had ever seen.

However, a part of L's heart that hadn't yet died out said that Near was cold and emotionless like L wished he wasn't becoming, while Mello had eyes full of passion and a spark that had since died out in the reflection of his own.

When L said Mello's name instead of Near's, Roger and Watari both looked at him like he had gone mad. Had L--Ryuuzaki, now--made such a clouded decision? Had he let emotion win out over pure logic?

But these men, so consumed in the idea that this mere _child_, in all retrospect, would be able to change the world (no matter the cost to the child), could not tell Ryuuzaki "no".

Roger knew from that moment, however, that though he could not go against Ryuuzaki's word, he would never, in his own best judgment, be able to name Mello as the heir to the now-only-a-title of L.

Though Mello had been comforted by his best friend, the loss of L from his life had changed him irreversibly, and each of his hero's too-short visits scarred him more, as L was permitted only to quickly and objectively check up on the progress of the children before he left again.

Mello's peers, in the coming years, had taken to trying to pick on him again, jumping at any sign of weakness and joking with him about how he was a "has-been" and "washed up", knowing how the fact grated on his nerves, and laughing when he would try to retaliate only to be stopped by Matt, who had become a sort of conscience to the blond, in a kind of unspoken "thank you" for Mello's having played that role during the redhead's earlier years.

Mello hardly ever prayed anymore.

Almost six years later, the children at the Wammy's House had grown from being genius children to genius teenagers.

"I so whooped you, Mello," said Matt, a controller held triumphantly in his hands, impressed by the ease with which he had gotten a K.O. against his friend's character in the fighting game they were playing.

The lanky blond beside him smacked him upside the head, and stuck out his tongue, his eyes askew in a teasing expression. "I beat you last round."

"Yeah, barely. I totally wiped the floor with your ass that time." Matt had lately taken to cussing, loving how adult and cool he thought he sounded when he did it.

"You know, I can't wait until Roger hears you say something like that, and whoops _your ass_ for being a smart-aleck little prick."

"_You're_ one to talk. You even had the nerve to use the f-word, in _class_, no doubt, when Near got one point better than you _again_ on that math test. You were so lucky I was the only one who heard you."

Mello dropped his controller on the carpet with a thud. His eyes narrowed.

Matt knew that look, and braced himself.

Mello pounced at him, pinning him to the ground with his bony elbows and raking his knuckles across the red hair on Matt's head.

"Mellooooo! Stop!"

The blond continued his assault, moving to tickling after he felt Matt had been thoroughly noogied, knowing the redhead hated being tickled more than almost anything in the world.

Matt grabbed and clutched at Mello's hands, laughing hysterically and trying to move the expertly skilled fingers anywhere beside his abdomen. He looked up at Mello's face, and at the devious grin plastered across it.

"U…uncle!" Matt gasped between laughs. "I give up!"

Mello stopped finally, chuckling, himself, and looked down fondly at his friend. Matt looked up at him through the greenish tint of the new goggles he had gotten after the old ones had grown too small.

There was a change in the air around the two. It grew tenser, warmer, a bit stifled. The boys stared at each other, Matt still gasping for breath after the assault. Mello's grin melted off of his face, and he gulped, parted and closed his suddenly dry lips a few times, and then slowly (painfully slowly) leaned down, far enough that the longest ends of his hair curtained around Matt's head.

This had happened a couple of times before, and it was always a rather awkward affair, and Matt knew that it was no longer the tickling that was forcing his heart to beat as fast as it was. They were close enough that Matt could see the flecks of dark and light in Mello's blue irises and that Mello could see Matt's eyes through the goggles.

The blond's breathing had become as labored as the redhead's had been moments before. His fingernails scratched at the carpet around Matt's shoulders. Matt reached up and felt, apprehensively, at the soft cloth of Mello's shirt and marveled at the way it hugged at the boy's lithe chest underneath.

"Mello," sighed Matt breathlessly.

"Matt," mouthed the other back.

They grew barely a millimeter closer, paused, and then it seemed that a spark of recognition at what they were doing or were about to do crossed between them, and Mello backed up off of his friend like he had been struck. Matt laid in the same spot for a very long time, and both boys looked around nervously, before the younger spoke.

"You know, everyone really will think we're gay or something if we keep doing stuff like that."

"Uhm…yeah."

An awkward laugh between them; an exasperated, unison sigh.

They picked up their respective controllers, chose their respective characters, and played a round without a word.

"I beat you," said Mello blankly.

"Uh-huh."

"You wanna stop now?"

"…err…that may be a good idea."

"Dinner?"

"Dinner sounds great."

Each of the times that it seemed Mello and Matt were growing closer, it always seemed more like a small rift had formed between them. For days, the two had trouble looking at each other. They had trouble speaking to each other. They spent less time in each others' rooms, and more locked away in their own.

The other children always seemed to notice this, and it made for more opportunities for the old bullies to come back in full force, including Brad, who relished in the times when Matt was by himself, away from the blond who had broken his nose.

"Hey, Ken. Barbie giving you the cold shoulder?"

Matt flicked the older teen off.

"Oh, so he has an attitude! Hey, you got the balls to back that up, Matt?"

"Seriously, Brad." Matt thought back to Mello, and how Brad feared him. There had been one word that the redhead hadn't dared to actually say, that he had only heard Mello or the older kids use. "Just fuck off," he hissed, feeling tough.

Brad and his group of fellow bullies didn't bother Matt after that, but being alone against the older boys made him miss his friend and wish that things didn't keep getting so uncomfortable between them.

When Mello wasn't around, Matt not only felt alone, but weak and afraid. He had grown accustomed, over time, to being always second to his friend, like Mello was to Near. Unlike the blond, however, he no longer held any animosity whatsoever toward the boy directly ahead of him, but instead had become rather dependent on the fact that Mello's status was still better than his fractured own. Where playing video games had always been a favorite pastime of the redhead, it had become more and more apparent over time that it was also a crutch. The characters in the games were strong, fast, cool, and usually had abilities that a young boy of only thirteen could only dream of.

Matt, when he was away from Mello, often got it into his head that he wanted, more than anything, to stop being himself and be more like his current favorite game character.

Since he wasn't about to play the fighting game without anyone to play it with, Matt had taken up what he thought was an exceedingly awesome mission-based espionage game. This resulted in what was now a rather sneaky redhead roaming the kitchen. Kitchen raids had always been one of Matt's specialties, and this gave him a chance to test out his new moves, most of which consisted of flattening himself against walls and cabinets and rolling around on the floor in a manner that would have looked rather geeky to any outsider.

"You look rather…geeky," said a voice from above, accompanied by a strange munching noise.

Matt made an odd sound resembling "REET", and could imagine a large sign of surprise appearing above his head. He had been discovered!

Where was a box when you needed one?

"It's just me, you git," came the voice again, and Mello jumped down from his perch on one of the kitchen counters. He held out his hand, a silver-wrapped bar in it. "Chocolate?"

Matt's muscles relaxed, and he waved the offering off, digging through the fridge and grabbing himself a soda instead. "We're past the awkward stage, then?"

"I guess. Seems the world won't let us stay away from each other, eh?"

Matt frowned. "That sounds like something out of one of those cheesy romance movies Roger was watching the other night when he thought we were all asleep."

Mello scratched his head, the last of one chocolate bar hanging out of his mouth. "Okay, so not the best thing to say to get past the awkward, huh?"

"Probably not."

"We're still friends, though, right?"

Matt leaned against the refrigerator and smiled. "Yeah."

The blond held out a hand, a smirk etched on his face. "Shake on it?"

The two clasped hands. Always they would drift apart, always they would drift back together, and the cycle, though an unnerving one, was consistent, and the unerring certainty with which it continued was a small comfort to them both.

They had made a sort of unspoken promise, Mello and Matt, that if something were to happen--something terrible that would rip them from each other more brutally than awkward moments in their rooms--that the pattern would continue on, unchanging as it had always been. They had made this promise without each other's consent--Matt in telling himself over and over again that he would never grow estranged or lost from his best friend, no matter what; Mello in praying when he had given up praying otherwise that they would always be able to find each other--and with it they had drawn the shackles upon each other for life, binding and brutal but with the small comfort of being imprisoned with a friend. In this way, Mello and Matt had also signed a contract where they owed each other their lives: I steal your life to enrich mine, and in return I give you me.

The steel of their shackles and the blood with which they'd signed their names would be tested; in a cleaver, an eraser they called Kira. Kira was a serial killer, some unknown man who had begun to kill criminals, somehow and inexplicably, with heart attacks and without ever visibly laying hands on them. It was a mystery, how he did it, why he did it…was it really wrong to kill the scum of the earth who seemed, at first glance, deserving of death? Was he a man, really, or some maniac God figure gone astray?

Questions on Justice plagued the House. Just as the outside world had begun quickly to split in two, with half of it on Kira's side and half of it against him, so did the children and teens of Wammy's begin to argue amongst themselves on whether Kira was really doing the right thing or not. Even when word came to them that L, their leader and their savior, was against him, still they were split.

It is unclear which side Mello would have picked had L not risen against Kira, as he had chosen to keep quiet and watch from the sidelines, with Matt, as fighting broke their home in two. As soon as it became clear what side L was on, however, Mello had jumped full-force into the fray, dragging his friend along with him, as though that were the last deciding factor he had needed; as though Matt had no choice on the matter, because L was, after all, always right anyway.

"There is no justice in what Kira is doing!" Mello ranted one night, pacing around Matt's room. "He is murdering for his own personal gain, to bring himself fame! He's judging people without fairness, he will stop at nothing to meet his goals! He proved that when he killed the man that L sent out as a decoy! He proved that when he killed the FBI agents that tailed him!"

"I know, Mello," said Matt again, like he had said the past three times this had happened. "I agree with you. As you'd say, you're preaching to the choir."

This was not altogether true. Matt did, like Mello, revere L above almost all others (save for, the redhead realized with a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, Mello himself), but he was also not as blinded by that reverence as his friend, and could see, even in Mello's rantings, that there was something wrong with L's methods, too. Hadn't he put a man before Kira, to die in his place? He had asked that question once to Mello, who reasoned that the man had been a death row inmate. Matt hadn't said anything, not wanting a fight, but had thought to himself that this man, this Lind L. Taylor who had been so expendable, had been treated as no more human than the criminals that Kira was killing, himself.

It was a tricky situation, for though he did not agree with everything L had done, Matt did not agree with Kira, either. He thought him self-centered and arrogant for having taken the task unto himself to judge others, completely ignoring the systems of justice already in place.

He didn't know what to think, but reasoned with himself that it was because he was third in line. Mello was _sure_, so sure that L was right and Kira was wrong. Near, though Mello would not believe it if the fact slapped him in the face, was giving off the same answers when asked, all the same reasons as the blond who was always just one step behind him.

Matt was third, he reasoned, because he could not see the elusive thing that made them so certain. He was so uncertain, he reasoned, because he was third.

Matt was, however, sure of one thing: That some force he did not understand and that he would not even begin to understand until years later made it so that he could never fully disagree with Mello, so that even as the blond became increasingly more obsessed in L's righteousness and Kira's evil, and grew meaner--cruel even--against those who disagreed, Matt stopped Mello less and less, and smiled and laughed and rooted more and more each time the blond would show a child his own version of justice.

But where Mello could have grown himself an army of supporters, the simple fact that Near had the same ideas as him, but was an enemy nonetheless, drew Mello into deluding himself, even at the young age of fourteen, that everyone was against him except for Matt and L.

Genius children, as it turns out, are exceptional at logic. They are also, as a result, exceptional at mangling it beyond recognition, to where even the most faulty of reasoning seems true to the less keen observer.

Matt was one of the rather _more _keen observers, but he, himself, was a genius, and it was easy to twist his own thoughts so that even the most frighteningly vicious of his arguments with himself seemed reasonable.

Mello had become the bully and the tormentor he'd once hated to kids who disagreed and to kids who agreed with Near (Weren't they the same children, then, that agreed with Mello? Surely, no.), and Matt his only-too-willing accomplice. But it was all for justice, wasn't it? Wasn't that what everything was about? Wasn't justice why they were there at the House in the first place, to uphold it in L's stead?

Yes, they knew, but what they couldn't see was that they were there because Wammy had put everything into L, into Ryuuzaki: His life's work, his trust, his own blood and sweat that kept the boy awake at night with the nightmares they caused him. L was the Justice of Quillsh Wammy.

But L, one day, would die.

That was all of their purpose, nothing more. Not their Justice, but Wammy's.

Justice was sustenance, and it was poison, passed on like a plague from man to child, to unsuspecting child.

When L left for the very last time, he left behind not only ghosts of Justice in his wake, but another, small connection with those who cared for him. It was a code--a hacker's password, to be precise--remotely connected to a small timer mechanism located in L's headquarters in Japan. The timer was a simple countdown from 24 hours to zero, one that L would reset at the same time each day, at almost precisely 12 hours through.

In this case, it was the third in line who was the first to find the clue, and Matt didn't know, at first, what he was looking at on the screen in front of him; only that he'd been trying to figure out this strange string of numbers he had found in the deepest confines of the House network's security that had seemed more like a game than anything.

When he'd deciphered it, hours after Mello had given up on his stopping to come out to play, it had been a secret message, reading "The life of the best is no more or no less than the cycling of a clock, and when that cycle ends, the bells will toll." At the moment that message had been uncovered and typed into the space below the original code, the screen blanked out and switched to nothing but the timer on an empty void.

Matt had a feeling he knew what it had meant, but doubt caused him to call on Mello for reassurance that it wasn't true. But when the blond saw the timer--Matt's scrap paper with the code message scrawled on it lying next to the monitor--he backed up in horror. Seeing this timer was like watching the machines hooked up to a loved one in a hospital: Nothing but cold, empty, digital light to say if he's alive or dead; nothing but a cycle telling if his heart's still beating.

Mello refused to look at it any longer, preferring faith in his hero over this too-real, too definite numeric communication as his reassurance.

Matt couldn't look away.

For days, the redhead watched it almost nonstop, until he figured out the pattern. After that, at the same time each evening, Matt would come in, type in the code message, and watch the timer to make sure it reset at twelve hours and that L was still alive.

One day, the pattern broke, and Matt's mind began to reel.

_"You can't be seeing this. He never forgets."_

Eleven, and your heart skipped a beat.

Ten, and please just let him have forgotten, just this once, to reset it.

Nine, and Mello's wondering, worried, why you've gone back to staring at the screen again like you used to, when he knows you haven't done that in months.

Eight, and you can't tell him. You can't, because it'll break his heart.

Seven, and you're still in denial, somehow.

Six, and it's unlikely he would have forgotten for this long.

Five, and hope is starting to lose its grip.

Four, and breathe, you're dreaming. Pinch your cheeks, but the pain is really there.

Three, and you're starting to wish you had the faith that Mello did.

Two, and you're praying, regardless.

One, and you feel that you would puke, if you could feel your body anymore…if you had eaten anything to puke up.

Forty-five minutes…

Thirty minutes…

Fifteen minutes…

_Zero_, and you sneak away to pack and leave the House before you have to hear Mello's screams…so that he won't hear yours and know.

Matt had spared him for a time, but the blond's blissful ignorance was fleeting.

Mello hated Kira from the beginning, not because he had killed (Mello had done this, himself, he thought bitterly, images of his parents flashing through his mind), but because he had tried to take the place of God…his God.

However, when Mello found out that L had been killed at Kira's hands, it was as if his world had shattered. This man, this _Kira_, had taken away not only his God, but his idol, his friend, his _brother_, too.

And though the thought horrified him terribly, Mello, who had killed only in his own mind, wanted suddenly to snap the neck of the man they called Kira like he had snapped a chain so long ago, sending the murderer's head clashing like a prayer bead to the floor.

Roger said--lied--that L had never picked an heir. L, the only person that had ever come close to filling the void that had been left in Mello's heart when he was six, had never confirmed if he had more loved him or the boy who made him doubt if he was loved at all.

The dull ache of simply _not knowing _was worse than the sharp dread that had filled his mind when he thought of how it would feel if L had picked Near instead of him.

Roger wanted them to work together, but Mello, for no reason other than pure jealousy and fear, would have rather given up L's phantom affections than share them, and he stormed away to a whirlwind of clothing and banshee-agonized wails in his room, and then into the cold, still air of night.


	8. Those Who Trespass Against Us

**Miya's Note: I know I said there wouldn't be any more author's notes until the end, but I also had promised to get you this chapter over a week ago. I apologize for that, and if you want an explanation, all you need to do is copy/paste this into a word processor, and then check the page count. I didn't expect it to get this long, and because of that, I also ended this part a lot earlier (as far as where it ends in the story) than I originally intended. That, however, should be advantageous, as it'll probably balance out the lengths of the parts, as 9 was originally going to cover a relatively short period of time, while this one covered too long of one to be a reasonable length in comparison. **

**There are parts of this I'm still not completely happy with, but that could just be my over-critical self speaking. I do plan on revising the entire fic when I'm all done, though, so I'll take any criticism you have into account. Other than that, I hope you all enjoy, and that this was worth the wait. Love and Digital Hugs.**

* * *

…**those who trespass against us…**

Freedom was fear. This was the first thing Mello learned once he had thrust himself into the outside world.

Though a genius, he had a child's naiveté, still, and something inside of him had expected, wrongly, that the world would actually give a damn that he was a lone fourteen-, soon to be fifteen-year-old without a place to stay, and nothing but a single bag to keep him company.

But the world didn't care, nor did it even seem to notice, which is why Mello was huddled between two dumpsters in some cold and rancid alleyway, realizing with growing horror that he couldn't go home for dinner and a warm bed, and that he should have packed more than chocolate, rosaries, a couple of changes of clothes, and far too little real food.

He would not cry, though he wanted to so badly. He didn't have the luxury of tears (no place for the weak here). But he was hungry and tired, though too afraid to sleep, and loneliness like he had only felt just after his parents had died weighed heavy on his heart.

Where had Matt been when he had decided to leave? Not at his place in front of the computer, not in his room. He wasn't in the kitchen, or the yard. The last time Mello had seen him, Matt had been watching the computer. Could he have known about L and decided to leave, too? Why didn't he wait, just a little while, so they could leave together?

Matt, as it turns out, was just as scared as Mello. He wasn't far from the blond's location, in all actuality, and was crouched in the doorway of an abandoned building about two blocks away.

He was hiding, at that moment, from another runaway. The boy who was chasing him had been dirty and thin, as if he had been on the streets for some time, and he had stolen a hot dog from a street vendor, which had been abruptly nabbed from him by Matt.

The redhead, as he ran looking for a safe hideout, hadn't even realized he had run right past the perfect hiding place two alleys back, where his lungs had first started to burn. Had he ducked into that alley, he not only would have saved himself a great deal of anguish, but he would have run straight into Mello, who had heard the commotion and peeked out from between the dumpsters just in time to see a lanky, dirty boy who seemed to be running after someone who had just passed, and who was being chased by a rather angry hot dog vendor.

Seeing his opportunity, Mello slipped from his secure spot and looked cautiously out of the alley to see the hot dog stand, unguarded, not too far away. He walked to it as discreetly as possible, his backpack on his back, and took what he wanted casually, but cautiously, watching for a witness or the vendor's return.

While Mello enjoyed his first good meal since running away, Matt sat in his doorway, tired and gasping from his run, and scarfed down his food as quickly as possible in case the boy managed to find him, only to almost immediately puke it all back up.

As the days went by, both Mello and Matt began to realize that a lone child on the London streets was, sooner than not, a dead child. Because of this, Matt had found shelter amongst a group of fellow runaways, while Mello had weaseled his way into a small gang.

Matt's group, ironically, was lead by the very same boy from whom he'd acquired his short-lived meal just days before. As it turns out, it was that very same boy, a seventeen-year-old with a thick Cockney accent who went by the name of Miles, who had recruited Matt into the group.

"Not fas' enough this time, Guv," said Miles as he grabbed Matt by the shirt when the redhead, a few days after the hot dog incident, had been spotted and immediately tried to run away. "Don' think I'm gonna forget the little stunt you pulled on me."

Matt had tried to escape, yelling and flailing and actually getting a couple of hits in on the other boy, but Miles had calmed him down as fast as he could, knowing better than anything from his experiences that gaining a new ally--one who could steal from a boy who had lived his entire life taking from other people--was worth forgiving the person who had wronged him.

Mello, though everything had started off better for him at first, had a much rougher time finding allies than Matt had. As the nights grew colder and colder, he realized that his dumpsters, though they blocked the wind, did not save him from the chill enough to keep him from freezing to his bones. As he wandered the streets, he searched for shelter, finding quickly that the best places were ones near small restaurants that had ventilation from the kitchens that blew out enough warm air to let him drift into light, but cautious sleep.

Each morning, though, he found that he could not stay, as the owners of the restaurants would shoo him away or call the police, and he would have to run to a new sanctuary.

One night, he found an old parking lot surrounded by a broken fence, full of old, abandoned cars. He curled up in the back seat of one vehicle, pleased to find a tattered blanket there to wrap up in.

It was just as he was starting to drift off that he heard the clamor of the chain-links of the fence rattling, and then the sound of hushed voices. It was then that he looked around at the car in which he had taken shelter, and noticed that his blanket was not there by mistake. There were some various possessions scattered around the vehicle--old cans of food, a couple of articles of clothing--and Mello knew at that moment that he was trespassing in someone else's home.

A thousand thoughts ran through his head of how best to escape without being found, but the door had already opened, and a shadow stood before him, steel glinting in the moonlight from its hand, and the blond was more afraid for his life than he had ever been.

"Oi, look boys. We've got an intruder."

Mello was frozen in place, feeling hopeless. Any wrong move, and this man might kill him. If he didn't move at all, he might meet the same fate.

The man's knife flashed, brutal, and came down toward the young teen who had stolen its handler's shelter.

It caught on the blanket, and moved it from the small body underneath.

"Heh, come look at this. It's just a kid."

The man turned for a second, shrugging and laughing toward his unseen companions, and Mello thought to take the chance to run, but his body moved against his will, his eyes and then his hands darting to the black-silhouetted arm that held the knife.

It was almost impossible for the other men in the parking lot to see what was happening in the poor light, but there was a strange mass of flying shapes by the car; shouts sounding through the night, and the occasional glint of metal in the fray. The sound of heavy bodies clashing against the frame of the car called for the other men to move, but they all stood, motionless and gaping in the dark, unable to retaliate with guns or their own knives for fear of missing foe and hitting friend, instead. There was a muffled cry that had not come from a child, but a grown man, and it seemed the smaller of the shadows moved faster. Still, it was not fast enough, and the shine of steel had disappeared.

There was a screech that seemed to echo from the pavement to the stars.

It was a cry for help, but the people of the city didn't hear, drowning out the sound like they did every other frightful night-creature wail, fearing for the safety of their own children, even as another stumbled back, the hilt of a knife sticking out of his side, and tripped; fell to the asphalt.

The whites of Mello's eyes shone bright out of his silhouette as it seemed to grow along the ground, the shadow of his blood black and indiscernible from the rest of him.

"The little fucker bit me!" hissed the man as he stepped over to the teen who laid, writhing on the pavement.

As the other men gathered around, too, they caught the first flash of color. A streak of red had flown from the ground to the face of Mello's opponent, shining brightly over the metal blade it covered as the blond boy pulled the knife out of himself in a fit of pure desperation and slashed at the closest moving thing.

The circle of shadows drew back as the form before them, clutching at its side, leapt up and swiped madly through the air with the blood-covered knife. Then, there were shouts from behind the fence, and the clashing of metal as the links parted to allow the entrance of new bodies to the lot.

The sound of shots rang through the air.

Shadows began to fall both in front of and behind the teen, and he dropped back to the asphalt, still grasping the knife and his wound, too frightened to scream again, and voices mixed, unintelligible, in the frigid air.

Mello was dizzy from blood loss by the time the sounds had dulled to an echo around him, and when he felt a hand touch his back, his only instinct was to stab at it with any strength he had left, but his wrist was caught, and the weapon pried from his fingers.

"My God, they've really reached a new low this time…he's only a child," came the voice that seemed to belong to the person nearest Mello.

"Is the kid hurt?" came another voice.

"He's bleeding pretty badly…we need to get him somewhere out of here, before the fuckers come back for him. We've taken out a good lot of 'em, but they won't leave their stuff behind. I'm glad we finally found their hideout, though."

"Thanks to this little fella, right? If he hadn't screamed…" This voice was new as well, rough, and gravelly.

"We may not be able to thank him if we don't get him some help soon…"

There was the rustling of bodies, and then arms picked Mello up. The movement made him feel sick, and his dizziness blurred even the shadows so that everything seemed to have turned darker around him.

Caught within his own frantic thoughts, Mello lost track of time. Where the knife used to be, his Mama's rosary had appeared in his hand--how it got there, he wasn't quite sure…not quite sure of anything, no--and that moment was all there was, the cross dangling from his bloody fingers, the thought running over and over and over and over…_"Oh God, I don't wanna die…Oh God, I'm scared to die…Oh God…."_

And then he had started shaking uncontrollably, and all he knew about where he'd come was there was light, and there were hands on him, and all the pain in his side was getting worse and worse, and the light had turned into just…_white_, just like the darkness had kept getting blacker and blacker, then _black_…

"He's definitely gonna make it…the wound wasn't as bad as I thought," someone had said.

But all Mello heard was his own _"Oh, God…Oh, God…__**Oh, God**__…"_

He couldn't hear it as they said he was going into shock. He couldn't feel his own body twitching against the hard surface of an old table. He could only hear his own pleas that he was screaming by then and that were as close to prayers as he could manage, and he could feel the pain that had taken his entire form.

But then, there was a new pain, as if he'd been stabbed again, and then his thoughts slowed; his screams quieted. The white of the lights blurred farther into grey around the edges of his vision, and then faded completely, his eyes closing to the morphine that had filled his veins with each pounding _beat, beat, beat_ of his heart.

That sound is what carried him into slumber, and it was also the first thing that greeted him when he woke again--God only knows how much later--its metronome pounding in his skull as the wound in his side throbbed dully as the heavy painkiller began to wear off.

As his senses adjusted, Mello took in what he could of the room around him. He was on the floor, in the midst of what was apparently a pile of old blankets and musty pillows. The windows of the room he was in were boarded over, and the little light that filtered in between the planks barely did anything to enhance the harsh, but inadequate glow of a single naked bulb above him. There were other cushioned nest-beds scattered around him, a couple of which still had people lying in them, most of whom were either asleep or paying him no heed.

Mello thought to move, but the pain that greeted him at any attempt to do so changed his mind quickly enough. His mind was still lightly blanketed by a fairly pleasant fog, and he simply relaxed back into the slightly lumpy, but still remotely comfortable pile beneath him, able to easily ignore the smell of old sweat and other unknown filth after having to live too long without the warmth that accompanied it.

He had no way to judge time to tell how long it was before a bony woman with greasy brown hair walked into the room to check on him.

"You're awake. I'm glad."

Mello turned his head to her, taking in her features. She was pretty, under the rags she wore, and obviously older than him by a few years. Her eyes were visibly blue, even in the dim light, and they seemed out of place amongst the dirt and grime on her face. Her smile was a welcome change from haunting silhouettes.

"What happened?" asked Mello to her. "I remember being in that parking lot, and a man with a knife. After that…I assume he stabbed me, but I don't remember how, or much of what went on after that. Who was he? Who are you? Where am I now?"

"That man, the one who stabbed you, was a member of a rival gang of ours. I can't tell you much of what happened, other than your screams were what brought us into that parking lot. We had been trying for months to find where they'd holed themselves up, but each time we'd get close, they'd move again. Those men have done a lot of terrible things. They killed my little brother, just like I think they were trying to kill you. We brought you here, because you were hurt, and because I couldn't leave another kid to die out there. This is the closest my group has to home. It's not much, but…"

"It's great. It's a lot nicer than where I have been."

The woman looked surprised. "You mean that?"

"Yeah." Mello took a very deep breath, and tried to ignore the aching twinge as his sides expanded and contracted. "At least it's inside…something like a home."

"You're not from one of the other gangs, are you? Why were you there, anyway?"

"I just wanted somewhere warm, and I found that car…and then the guy came, and he didn't want me there…I'm not in any kind of gang…"

The brunette looked relieved at that. "Do you have anywhere to go back to? A family? A home?"

"I'm an orphan."

There was an understanding, soothing smile at that, but a forced one. "You're like me, then."

"I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble. Once I'm better, I'll leave…"

"You're not any trouble at all! I've talked to everyone. We've all agreed that if you have nowhere to go, that you can stay with us. We'll take care of you. That's what we do. We stick together."

"Like a family."

"Yes." She looked down at the child in front of her, and an old ache revived in her heart. He looked so small, so helpless, in so much pain…

"I noticed your accent's not from around here," said Mello, trying to keep his mind off the sharp pain that was getting worse as the medicine wore off.

"I was born in America. I lived with my dad, there. I never knew my mother. Dad told me that she hadn't wanted a kid, but he'd stopped her from getting an abortion, and had taken full custody of me after he and she got divorced. When I was nine, Dad met a British woman named Rosette…she was beautiful. We moved to London, and we were happy, and Dad and Rosette had Adrian. Then, one day…they went out to dinner, left the two of us with the babysitter, and never came back. It was a car crash…"

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"I don't know. For some reason, I feel that I can trust you."

"Because I remind you of your brother?"

The woman looked away at that. "No, you're stronger than he was. You lived."

"Dying doesn't make you weak," said Mello, and his voice had gone dark. It startled the woman, because she suddenly didn't hear a child in that voice.

The brunette stuttered. She looked at the boy, and his eyes were piercing.

"And living doesn't make you strong," he said. "I learned that when my parents died, and left me behind."

Before there was time to think or to respond, the gruff voice from earlier called out, "Hey, Lee, the kid awake yet?"

"He's fine," the woman named Lee said back, almost thankful for a distraction.

The owner of the gravely voice walked into the room, just close enough that Mello could see him. He was a stocky, small man, and his eyes were dark, but not unkind. "I'm sure you're still in pain, eh' kid?"

"My name's Mello."

"Mello, huh? That a nickname?"

"Yeah."

"Most of us here go by some kinda' alias, too, so that's cool."

"I won't let you give him another shot," Lee cut in, looking at the gruff man's hand and at the syringe it held. "He's too young. He'll get addicted too easily."

"You really gonna let a kid suffer without any painkillers? I remember how Adrian screamed for the morphine after he got caught in that drive-by…"

"And I wouldn't let him have it, Jack!"

"And he cried for the stuff until the moment he died." It was obvious to Mello that the second the man had said that, he regretted it.

"That's harsh, you bastard!" It was obvious that Lee was holding herself back from either crying or attacking Jack, and her face was full of both rage and sadness.

"All I'm saying is that I don't want the kid to be in pain, because I don't think I could stand to be kept up by crying like that again! I know he was your brother, but how do you think it felt for the rest of us, huh? When the kid--Mello, right?--was asleep, he looked so peaceful…"

"Lee." Said Mello, trying to break the palpable tension in the room. "You're right. I'm not like your brother. I don't need it." He turned his head to Jack. "Thank you, but I'd rather not…it hurts, yes, but there are things I need to do. I need to be able to think…"

The people who had been sleeping had all woken up, and some of them were rubbing their eyes groggily. Others were staring, caught in something resembling awe. It reminded Mello a lot of the House, how childlike many of them looked as they watched, curled up in their makeshift beds. Though most were older than him, many of them were still young, and he realized with a strange sort of spite, probably many years behind him on a mental level.

Mello felt, as he often did among other people, that he was completely out of place.

"There you go, Jack. Now get out of this fucking room," hissed Lee, "and take that morphine with you. If you want to help the kid, bring him some _food_."

Jack simply turned and walked out without a word.

The brunette woman sat down on some of the cushions, and hid her face in her hands. After a long moment of silence, her body began to shake slightly, and she looked up, her eyes a little red from holding back tears, her hand covering her nose as it tried to run. It was obvious that she didn't want to cry, but that she was having difficulties holding back.

"You know, I bet he's in Heaven," said the blond boy. "If you wanna try talking to him, I bet he'll hear it. He may not respond, but it might make you feel better."

"Man of faith, huh? I used to be, until God took him away from me…I'm sorry. I'm usually not this emotional. Makes me feel really girly…" She laughed a little at that, awkwardly.

"It's okay. You know, even if I'm not like him, I understand what it's like to need someone to fill in the gap he left. I lost someone, too. He wasn't my real brother, but I miss him."

Lee had wiped the traces of tears away and turned to him, her eyes wide with worry. "What's a kid like you have that's so important that you need to do? Why are you out on the streets? Is it because you didn't want to be shuffled around foster homes? That's why, after Dad and Rosette died, I ran away with Adrian…but even that would have been better than dying out here!"

"I ran away from my orphanage because I have to catch Kira. He's the one who killed _my_ brother." Mello forced himself to sit up, despite his wound. "Thank you," he said, and he leaned over, closer to Lee, "for saving me. Out there, I couldn't even stay still long enough to think of a plan."

"Kira? Are you crazy? How old are you?"

"I…I don't know. What's the date?"

"January third, but…"

"Fifteen, then. What a way to spend my birthday and Christmas, huh, out on the streets? I didn't even know they'd passed, and, really, I don't care. I may be young, but Kira's taken everything from me. If I don't catch him…there's no reason for me to live."

That hit something deep in the woman's heart--some kind of painful recognition--and she knew suddenly that there was no way she'd be able to change Mello's mind, so she chose, instead, to try and help him as best she could. Yes, this Mello was a child, but there was something so different about him. "I…know a thing or two about revenge," she said solemnly, knowing, somehow, that the blond would understand.

"That gang?"

"Not just them. My group found and killed all of the men who were in that car after they saw what happened, and they took us in. The guy who actually fired the shot had to be one of them, so, really, it isn't just about the person who killed Adrian."

There was grumbling from around the room, and the people who had been sleeping were, by this time, getting up and getting ready for the day ahead. None of them were really paying attention to the two any more, and that fact seemed to allow Lee to talk on an even more personal level--something she could have never brought herself to say to anybody in the gang.

"The people you see around us," she said, "are my family. But, still, I hate gangs. I hate what being on the streets can do to people. There was a time when I almost agreed with Kira for what he was doing. There was even a short, crazy period where I wanted to get caught by the cops and be judged by him for having let myself get to the point that I was at…where I would join a group against the one that killed my brother, just so that I could take out the rest of them, even though none of the ones that were still living had ever done anything against me. But then, I realized that Kira was going about it all wrong, too. Maybe he had the same problem I did, and was just going after these criminals because of some immature vendetta."

"You sound like you have a plan of your own."

"I do." She looked around, as if making sure the others really weren't listening. "I remember, back in America, when I used to watch the news with Dad, seeing all of the stuff about the FBI and the CIA…big government law enforcement--the kind that we don't really have here, not in the same way. I wanna go back there…" Lee put her fist to her mouth, thinking. "We…we're staging a raid tonight on that gang. I don't wanna do it. I don't want to, but I have to, because I'm not there. I'm here, with these people, and I'm one of them. I'm just…some criminal like the rest of them, you know?"

"Just because you're here, now, doesn't mean you have to stay."

It was then that they were interrupted by Jack, who had returned with food. "It ain't much, kid, but it's all we have."

"It's fine, but could you guys stop calling me "kid"? I have a name, remember?"

"You got attitude. I like that," said Jack, handing Mello the plate. "You'd be a good one of us, I'm sure, once you heal. Too bad you're not gonna be better by tonight. You got that one fuck good, and I bet you could do some serious damage with a little more practice."

"Jack, don't," Lee sighed exasperatedly, wishing the man in front of her would stop butting his nose where it didn't belong.

"I'm serious, Lee. Our little buddy Mello…you saw that gouge in that guy's face."

"What?" Mello cried out. "I didn't! I wouldn't do something like…"

"You almost got Lee pretty nice, too…"

"Jack, stop! I don't even think he was aware of what he was doing!" Lee tried to push him out the door, but Mello stopped her.

"What did I do?"

"You stabbed a guy with his own knife, that's what you…"

"Shut up, Jack! He didn't need to know!"

Mello stood, and swayed in his spot. He clutched at the bandages on his side. "Did I really do that? Tell me. I have a _right_ to know. You don't have to protect me." He looked, pleading, at Lee.

"Go ahead, Lee. Tell him. I agree. He deserves to know what he's capable of."

Realizing she was defeated, the woman explained. "When we first found you, we saw you through the fence, through where it wasn't covered up by boards or cloth they'd been using to try and hide, and we saw you pull the knife from your own side and use it to defend yourself. It was adrenaline. That's all it was, just like it was a reflex when you tried to stab at me when I touched you."

"Did I hurt you?"

"No. I stopped you."

"I'm glad, but why did you keep that from me? I asked you what happened, and you said you didn't know."

"I wanted to protect you…a kid shouldn't have to deal with that kind of thing."

Jack spoke next. "Lee, did you protect him because you thought the knowledge would hurt him, or because you thought he'd want to fight?"

The woman sputtered slightly, eyeing the stocky man with disdain.

"Maybe I do want to fight. Not tonight, obviously, because I'd get myself killed, like this. It scares me that I'd do something like that, even if it was just a gut reflex, but any power I have that could get me closer to stopping Kira…"

"Kira, eh?" Jack cut in. "That's a big responsibility for a kid to be taking."

"Could you both just _shut up _about my being so young? I'm sick of it. From now on, I want you guys to treat me just like you would anybody else here. I may need your help, and if you can't treat me as an equal, I may have to go to someone else, because I don't have time to sit around and have people dote on me. I'm sure I'll be healed soon. Where's my bag?"

"Don't leave. We'll help you, Mello," Lee begged. "At least I will. We may not have the same goals, but there may be a way for us to work together somehow."

"I'm not leaving; at least not yet. I just need to see my stuff, and I need some time to think."

Jack pointed to a small backpack that was propped up against one wall. Mello nodded his thanks and went over to it. The two didn't stop to see what he was getting, but it looked as if he'd held it to his chest, whatever it was.

"He's a weird kid--oops, weird _guy_--isn't he?" asked Jack to Lee once they'd left the room.

"He is, but there's something special about him. He's got so much weighing on his mind, it's as if he's lived ten years past his age. To want to go against Kira on his own…they have the most qualified people in the world working on that case, including that L guy… He's only fifteen, but…"

"You think he could actually do it?"

"That's the thing. I don't know. With any other kid--hell, any other person--I'd say no."

"I'll talk to him later. Like an adult. I'm sure he has questions for us, too."

"Okay. Let's give him a little space, though. He needs time to clear his head."

"Yeah."

After somewhere around an hour's time. Mello stepped out of the room, his Mama's rosary around his neck. The rest of the gang's headquarters weren't much different from what was obviously the group bedroom, except for some differences in ratty furniture that distinguished one area from another. He stood in the doorway of what seemed to be a kind of meeting room, biting off a piece of one of the only bars of chocolate he had left, thankful for his ability to ration as he watched some of the group's members talking around a fold-out table.

It was obvious, from even a short period of watching, who was in charge: A tall man with jet-black hair and numerous intricate tattoos whose voice he vaguely recognized from when the gang had saved him.

This man was engaged in an animated argument with Lee, and was pacing back and forth along one side of the table, his hand clenched in the base of his own ponytail in a gesture of obvious annoyance. "You can't just skip out on us, Lee. We need you for this one. We need your aim."

"I won't. Not this time. Not anymore."

"What the hell is wrong with you? What made you change your mind all of a sudden? Isn't it you who's always telling us to stick together?"

"I'm sorry, but I seem to have lost sight of the cause."

"It's that kid, isn't it? You find some street-rat kid, and it makes you get all sentimental on us."

"I'm standing right here," said Mello, leaning against the doorframe, and wincing as his side stretched when he did.

"Mello, I'm sorry you had to see this," Lee hissed, sending a glare toward the leader as she stood up from her chair and walked past the blond boy and out of the room.

"Kid, you'd better not be trying to interfere. Lee may have a soft spot for you, but I wouldn't think twice about throwing you back in that parking lot as bait."

"He ain't a kid," Jack butted in.

"And I'm not trying to interfere," said Mello, walking up to the tall man and standing directly in front of him, having to look up at him in a manner that would have seemed almost funny had the situation been less serious. As it were, the fact that Mello had the courage to put himself in that position, standing strongly, despite the bandages around him and the way the other man towered over him, actually startled the leader, and he inadvertently found himself taking a half a step back. "If I weren't injured, I would tell you to hand me a weapon and fight in her place, but right now, the risk is too great, and I have too much I need to do. She said those things of her own accord. She's been having doubts for a while now, from what I gathered, so don't go blaming me because someone disagrees with you, and you think I'm an easy target. Maybe she's right, and _you're_ the one who's wrong."

"You'd better learn some respect, soon, kid. Mouthin' off like that's gonna get you killed one day."

"I'm not yet a member of this gang, which means that I am in no way subordinate to you. If I have to show respect to anyone, it's Lee, because she's the one who saved me. She's the only one I have a debt to."

The man seemed to be trying to keep himself from reacting, and the look in his eyes said that he would have probably hit Mello if there hadn't been others around.

He looked down at Mello. Mello simply stared back up at him, unwavering and willful.

Jack spoke up. "I told you. He's no kid."

"So I see," said the man, and he turned and left the room, too.

The second the man was gone, Mello let out the breath he'd been holding and clutched his rosary, looking up and saying a silent thank-you prayer.

"You know, you're a cool guy, Mello," said Jack as he stood and clapped a hand on the blond's back. "I know more than a few guys who would pay to have the balls to do what you just did."

A few of the people around the table nodded their consent.

"You know," said another guy, "you'd better be careful, or we're gonna have an uprising on our hands, and H is gonna be replaced as leader by someone half his age."

"H?" Mello asked, puzzled.

"Yeah," hissed Jack with a smirk that almost resembled a snarl. "For _Hugo_."

A couple of the other guys laughed. Mello smiled a little, slightly relieved that this H had no relation to other people he knew that went by initials alone.

"Guys, could you clear out? I need to talk to our friend here," said the gruff voice that had grown to be a comforting sound.

The others grumbled a little. A couple of them nodded. Slowly, they filed out, and Jack shut the door behind them.

"You know, I didn't really agree with her when she said it earlier, but Lee's right. There's something different about you."

"Thanks, but that wasn't anything special. I was scared like you wouldn't believe to do that…"

"But you _did it_. When our old boss died--now _that_ was a good man--the guys picked the next leader by duking it out against each other. H beat 'em all, and ever since then, he's been lording it over all of us. I didn't fight, but I regret every day that I didn't beat his bloody face in when I had the chance. You were scared shitless, and you still had it in ya' to stand up to the asshole. That shows guts, right there…Hell, more than I ever had. From now on, I've got your back. Anything you need, you come to me, or Lee, got it?"

"Yeah." Mello smiled, and for a split second, the child was visible in his eyes. "Thank you."

"No problem. You got any questions? Anything at all? You're trying to go after that Kira fuck, right? I know I'm just some guy, but I'll do anything I can to help you out."

Mello looked down, consumed in thought, and then he started pacing, and Jack almost laughed at the way he fell into the same path that H had been following just moments before. "What I need…is a force. A group of people powerful enough to stand up and fight against Kira. Really fight. I'm not talking about cops. They're too regulated, and most of them would be too afraid of him, anyway. Beside, there are probably a number of them that agree with him, and I can't take that risk. I need someone…less controlled. Someone who would give up their lives if it came to that…"

Jack seemed to consider that for a moment. It wasn't long before his eyes lit up with a spark of an idea, and Mello was relieved to find that Jack at least seemed intelligent. "Well, let's think this through," he said, and it reminded Mello a lot of the times at the House when he had been tested with a situation and had to reason it out. "The most powerful allies are the enemy's enemies, right?"

"Right."

"And Kira's against criminals, right?"

"Yeah."

"So wouldn't it stand to reason that criminals…"

Mello stopped, and pounded a fist into the open palm of his other hand. "Criminals are against Kira. I need someone like you guys, but bigger."

"Sounds reasonable."

"But," Mello continued, "people like you--people in street gangs--the reason most of you are out here isn't really because you _chose_ to be."

"That's true."

"So, there might be a lot of gang members who just don't want to get involved."

Jack smiled. "But, there are people who _choose_ to be criminals."

"You're right. To them, it's a way of life, but with Kira around, the risk of getting caught starts getting worse and worse, and they probably resent him for it."

"So you'd need people like drug runners, mafia--any kind of organized high-crime syndicate that's gonna have a grudge against Kira."

"That could work, and those kind of people, they have money; resources."

"There's a problem, though, Mel--can I call you Mel?"

"As long as it's not "kid", it's fine."

Jack nodded, and then continued. "How the hell are you gonna get in with them? Beside, isn't Kira supposed to be in Japan? That could make things a little difficult."

"About getting in there, I don't know what I'll do yet, but what I do know is that Kira may be in Japan, but he's a worldwide problem, so I can find allies anywhere I go, and I wouldn't necessarily have to go to _him_, at least not right away."

They looked at each other, open and finished with what they had to say. All that was left was Mello's questioning eyes, asking silently whether the man in front of him would help.

Jack grinned in answer. "Count me in. She was right, Mel, I think you can do it! I bet you Lee's gonna love to hear about this!"

"You can't tell her. She won't do it."

The grin faded. "What d'you mean?"

"She told me she hates gangs. You really think she's gonna wanna work with another gang against Kira, a bigger one, if she won't even go on that raid with you?"

The energy in the room seemed to sink, and it felt as if the both of them were being dragged down a bit with it. "I think she'll come around," said the older, finally, but uncertainly. "This is for a just cause, right?"

"I don't know if she will or not, but it's clear that I need to do some planning; figure a few things out, like who, exactly, we're gonna try to get in with. You need to get ready for tonight, right? I'll keep thinking on it. You go prepare yourself. Get some rest."

Jack nodded. "Well, then, Mel. I'll see you later tonight, after we kick those sorry fuckers' asses." He laughed. "Maybe H, he'll get some humility knocked into him, right?"

"Yeah."

Jack smiled wider, and jerked forward as if he were about to do something, but stopped, before finally stepping forward and grasping Mello in a bear hug. "You know, I haven't been this excited about something in years. Thanks a lot."

"It's nothing, but you're welcome."

By that night, Mello had formulated the basis of a plan on his own, while managing to dodge any questions Lee had about what, exactly, his thoughts were so consumed.

It would start with sending out members of the gang for reconnaissance--anyone who would cooperate--to do research on the biggest crime groups in London, and to observe them from afar and get any information they could that might be useful to Mello and Jack, who would be the ones who would use that information to find a way in. Jack would act as a sort of bodyguard--while Mello was smart and (he thought) relatively self-sufficient for his age, he still didn't trust himself to do something do dangerous without some sort of security--and Mello, protected, would manipulate and build trusts among the new gang.

From there (the hard part, really, was the getting in, but knowing more about the target group would help immensely), it was all a matter of using his new allies to gather information about Kira. How did he kill? What was his motive? Who was he, even? What kind of a man, if a man at all?

Mello, every time he thought about Kira, wanted so badly to believe that he was nothing more than human--just another clever human like himself--but he had killed L, and that fact caused Mello's mind to fight itself, where half of him wanted to be fighting someone he had half a chance to beat, while the other didn't want to believe that any regular man had been able to murder his hero.

But all he could do, fear or no fear, was to plan, and having something to ponder, he found, took his mind off of his worries.

That night, however, no thoughts could mask the fact that something bad had happened. Mello and Lee were the only ones left at the hideout, and after a few hours alone, both of them started to worry.

"Do you think something went wrong?" Mello asked.

Lee shook her head, fidgeting, her hands moving from being clasped together, to her face, through her hair, and through innumerable different meaningless, nervous gestures. "It usually doesn't take this long."

"Do we need to go out and look for them?"

"No…no I'm probably just worrying because it seems like a lot longer, because I'm here, not out there with them."

"Are you regretting not going?"

"I don't know, Mello." She sat next to him on his pile of blankets, and wrapped her arms around him and rocked back and forth in a comforting manner, and Mello knew it was more for herself than it was for him. "I don't know."

The time kept passing, quietly and steady, and soon Lee's heavy, frightened breathing was the only sound in the hideout. This is why, when the front door of the building slammed open, followed by the sound of labored shouts, both Lee and Mello stood up with a unison screech, as Jack ran into the bedroom.

"You two gotta get out of here. I shouldn't have come back here…I've probably led them right to you."

"You're hurt!" Mello cried, noticing how Jack was holding himself.

"It's only my arm. I was one of the lucky ones." He moved his hand to reveal the gaping shot wound there. It was obvious that it probably wouldn't heal right. Mello felt dizzy at the sight. "The fuckers were expecting us to come back for 'em, and they were prepared. They allied with the East Brawlers. H is dead, and so are most of the others. Some of us escaped, but I had to get to you to make sure you were safe. We have to get out of here, and we have to hide. We can never come back here. They'll be waiting if we do."

They took the back way out of the building just as soon as loud voices echoed throughout the hideout.

Mello had left his bag, and all he had left beside Lee and Jack were his mother's rosary on his neck, and the broken one in his right pocket.

It was thankfully dark enough that they could slip away without being seen, and they snuck off to a ditch in an old junkyard, where they took shelter in a large concrete drain pipe. It was dark, and musty, and the sounds of squeaking rats and clicking cockroaches echoed down it from some unknown space in the abyss, but it was inconspicuous, and would have to do until day, when the cops would be out full force and the rival gangs would not dare to attack them openly.

While the sounds of creatures echoed up to them, the labored, quiet noises of Jack's breaths and gasps of pain were amplified back down the pipe. It was too dark to see the wound, and as hard as Lee tried to figure out a way to treat it in the poor light, it was useless.

"It'll have to wait," Jack kept saying. "There's more light outside, but I won't let you risk it." His smile was barely visible in the dark. "You'd have to drag me out there, and ain't a small guy."

Jack's sense of humor was comforting, but as the hours went on and he made fewer jokes and his breathing became increasingly more ragged, all that Lee and Mello wanted was the sunlight that seemed as if it may have permanently ceased shining.

Finally, however, the sky began to lighten from a black-purple to a pink, and then to a pale blue, but by this time, the pained gasps had quieted to shallow huffs, and then silenced.

It was unclear whether it was blood loss, or shock, or infection that had done it, but Mello knew immediately that Jack was dead, like he could feel the air change as his soul was stolen away by the Lord. The slight brush of chill air against him caused him to shiver.

Lee, however, couldn't bring herself to believe the truth, and she shook Jack's body futilely, screaming as night turned into day.

Lee was without home, without family; orphaned for a second time.

They didn't have time to give Jack a proper burial, with only limited hours in the day to find new shelter and safety. The junkyard where they were staying was by the Thames, however, and they gave him to the water off of a dock where trash barges picked up cargo, and Mello said a prayer for him as Lee, sobbing, watched the body float for a moment and then sink as Jack's thick winter clothing soaked up enough water to weigh him down.

From the junkyard, they walked boldly through the crowds of the London streets, knowing that their rivals would not attack them, or even notice them, within the masses. As a woman and a teenaged boy, they also proved to be relatively inconspicuous, and it was obvious that, as long as they didn't show any outward signs of affiliation with the now-practically-extinct gang--Lee had to get rid of an old bandana that she normally kept tied around her right upper arm--that they would be in little danger, especially if they managed to find better clothing and shelter.

It was at this point that Lee revealed their saving grace: A stash of money that she had tucked into a pocket in the lining of her jacket that she had been slowly collecting over the years. It was enough to buy them both a few changes of clothes from the nearest second-hand store, some food, and a few nights' stay at a hotel, while still leaving them quite a sum to use later.

When Mello asked her what it was for, she answered, "I had been saving this to get a passport and a plane ticket home. Dad never did change our citizenship before he died, so I'm still legally an American. It'll be pretty easy for me to get back there with the right research and records, and now all I have left is to do it. No reason for me to stay here, now."

At the hotel that night, Lee and Mello were silent most of the time. There were only a few comments from Lee about how nice it was to have a decent shower for once, and not much more. When Lee woke the next morning, she leaned over Mello's bed and told him that she was heading to a library to look some things up. He nodded and curled up in the sheets, thankful for a room and a warm bed, but worried about what he would do with Jack gone and Lee trying to leave the country.

He had drifted off not long after, and didn't wake again until Lee returned with some printouts from the library computers. She sat down at the tiny table by the window and looked through the papers wordlessly.

Mello was beyond sick of the silence, and had too much at stake to be able to avoid trying to get Lee into the plan, since he had no other backup, but he knew that he couldn't tell her his and Jack's ideas openly. He said her name, and she turned to him.

"I…I need your help."

"What is it?"

"There's no way I'll be able to catch Kira alone. Please don't leave me here by myself."

The brunette stood, walking over to the bed and wrapping her arms around Mello. "I didn't plan on leaving you. I never planned on that, and I'm sorry for making you think I would."

"But, aren't you going to America?"

"I don't know anymore. Staying with you is more important. I've been looking things up, but I'm really just indulging in my old fantasies. With the money I've collected, we could start building a life here, and I'll take care of you."

"Why don't you just take me with you?" Mello asked, spotting an opportunity in Lee's dream and knowing that America, as one of the world's superpowers, would have more of the resources he needed.

"You're not American, Mello, are you? You may not even be able to find your records, depending on how young you were when you were orphaned. I'm not your legal guardian, either, and you're too young to travel without some form of permission from a parent or guardian."

The boy smiled. "But they wouldn't stop you from taking your little brother, would they?"

It was hard to tell at first whether Lee was more surprised or just plain offended. Soon, however, it had obviously begun to click that the goal she had given up on years before might just be attainable.

When Mello smiled (slightly deviously) and said, "It's probably what he would have wanted, right? He would have wanted you to follow your heart," the plan was set, and there was no way Lee could resist.

Immediately, Mello's brain started adjusting and reformulating all of the plans he had made before. Once they got to America, it would take the same basic steps: Gather information, build a strategy based on those plans, and then follow through on that strategy. However, he knew that Lee would not help him the way Jack was going to, but having her as an ally would surely be advantageous. She wanted to get into a government agency. That, itself, was a resource. If he could use Lee to get into criminal records, he could much more easily and much more precisely find a powerful group than if he had used spies from a street gang.

The real problem, however, laid in the fact that he would probably have to follow through on his own. Already he felt guilty about what he knew he had to do. He would have to use Lee, and then he would have to leave her behind, without a word or an apology.

He was scared, too, knowing that he was going to leave behind the only comfort he'd found since his _last_ time having run away, and as much as he tried to deny the fact, a part of him still admitted that he was only a young and gangly teenager, and that he was trying to intrude upon something much bigger than himself.

Lee, by this time, was already pacing around the room animatedly, her brown ponytail swishing behind her as she did. She was mumbling to herself rather incoherently, and Mello stopped her.

"We need to calm down and think. First, we need to make sure this will work. Were there any records--any at all--that said that your brother had died?"

"No. He was shot on the street, but he died in the hideout, and the only people who knew about it were the members of the gang."

"Good. Now, the main issue will be pulling this off without getting caught. If anybody knew we were lying about this, there's no way either of us would ever make it overseas. In fact, I don't think we'd have to worry about making a life here, either, because we'd be assured a nice home behind bars."

Hearing this boy talk so positively about something so _adult_ was more than a little disconcerting, but she knew that what he was saying was true. "Well, for starters, it'd probably help if we looked like brother and sister. Your accent," she said, noting Mello's strange inflection that seemed at times like a mix between British and something more foreign, "won't be too much of a problem. After all, Adrian was Rosette's son."

"That could also be an explanation, if anyone asked, to why we look different. If anybody wonders, it's because I take after my mother." Mello laughed. "That wouldn't be a lie, either. I really do take after Mama, even though she wasn't Rosette."

"That's good. That's a good start."

"There are things we could do to look more alike, though, to avoid people's asking questions as much as possible."

"Well, I've always wanted to see what I'd look like as a blonde," Lee chuckled. "Even though it should probably be you that changes to look like me, I think it'd be a shame for you to have to dye your hair."

Mello was glad for that, knowing that he wouldn't have to lose one of the only connections he had left with his childhood or real family, and he voiced his thanks.

From there, all it took was to do it, and during the next couple of weeks, they gathered records and supplies. When Lee bleached her hair the day before they went to get their Passport pictures, she did a little turn in the hotel room, happy with how it had turned out, though it had come out a little lighter than intended. When they got the Passports later, they held them up next to each other, and it was obvious that the slight change had done wonders, because they, in the photographs, looked convincingly like they could be related.

It didn't feel at all like it had been over a month when they boarded the plane to the United States. Lee was all smiles, even when they were stopped by Customs and their bags were checked.

When they arrived, the money that was left, and the money they had acquired during the preparation stages from various odd jobs was enough to rent a small apartment. Immediately, Lee started gathering information on how to get into the government, and Mello had never seen her happier. She finally decided on trying to get into the CIA, glad for her citizenship, but fearing that her lack of a college education and the fact that she had lived in England for most of her life would hinder her from being hired.

However, her resume had something that the CIA wanted: Street experience.

Within three weeks, she had an interview. Within another two, she was hired.

"It's one of the fastest hiring jobs they've ever done, they said, especially for someone who came off of the streets like I did!" Lee clasped the boy's hands, beaming. "They said it was my intelligence, my life experiences, and my ability to fight that did it. They said they had been needing someone just like me! Oh, Mello, but I shouldn't be telling you these things. You're not even supposed to know I'm hired, or even that I was applying."

"Don't worry, nobody will guess that I even know you."

"You want to see my I.D.? The picture came out really well, too. I think I'm going to keep the blonde." She laughed.

Mello looked at the card. The picture was a proud portrait of a woman with finely cut blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. She looked happy. He read the name listed. "Is that your real name? It's pretty."

"I don't like it. I've never felt that it fit me. It's too girly, so I shortened it to Lee."

As Lee's paychecks began to come in, the first thing they bought was a computer with internet connection, so that Lee could keep up with her work. When she was gone during the day, however, Mello, though he felt terrible about it, hacked into her records. He learned quickly when to start backing out and covering his trails, and he was glad that Lee had enough access to confidential files, but that she didn't put up a lot of extra security on the home computer. It was too easy to get in and out without a trace, and Mello was feeling more and more guilty by the day, glad that he was working fast enough that the time for him to run away and leave behind his lies was growing close.

It wasn't until a few days before he was to leave that he truly realized, with a sense of dread, that he was about to become one of the people that Lee and her coworkers were against.

He tried to concentrate on his research as much as he could, and most of the organized crime in America, he found, was organized by ethnicity. This, he knew, would be a problem, as his accent and his appearance were mixed, and didn't fit into most of the categories of people who had the power.

However, there was a subsection of Mafia who were divided by different means: Religion.

There was an especially powerful group of Catholics that had their headquarters on the West Coast, in Los Angeles. As much as he hated the idea of using his _faith_, of all things, to work his way into high crime, it was probably the best chance he had. The biggest problem was that he and Lee, for best access to the government, were living in Washington D.C.

He knew she would look for him if he ran away, and that he could not, by any means, use mass transit, because it would be too easy to trace, but he had to go, and as much as he wanted to stay and possibly use Lee's connections with the CIA to catch Kira, he knew that things probably wouldn't stay so easy forever. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before something happened, and Kira scared the American people into submission. It had already begun to happen in countries all across the world, and it was only a matter of time before it reached the States.

Luckily for Mello, he had learned a lot from his time on the streets, and he packed a small bag (this time with more food than the last, but still with quite a collection of chocolate), took enough money for the trip (which made him feel even more terrible), and nabbed a combat knife that he knew Lee kept in the drawer of her end table. Unable to get rid of his guilt, he left a window of the records open, with a message on the screen explaining what he had done and what he had to do, with a warning that Lee should not try to follow, though he knew that she probably would. He didn't list where he was going, and figured that Lee would not think to look across the country, and that he would be safe as long as he got far enough away from D.C.

It was a long, hard trip, and the beginning of it involved a lot of hitch-hiking and trying to stay as under the radar as he could. He was prepared, if somebody attacked him, to retaliate and run before word got out, but, thankfully, didn't have to take such drastic measures.

By the time the reports got out that Mello was missing, he was already halfway across the country, and had finally felt safe enough in his distance away to board a train. Those who had given him rides who came in to report having seen him had been given misleading directions, only being advised to take him short distances, and it seemed to anybody who asked them that Mello was probably a lot closer than he actually was.

Los Angeles, when he arrived there, was bustling and crowded. He was almost out of money, but had forethought enough to get new clothes so that he wouldn't look so obvious when he took a man's wallet. The man was oblivious, and Mello took what money he had, and then casually handed the wallet to a cop, as if he had found it on the ground and was the Good Samaritan who had returned it. When the man ran right past him, screaming and searching frantically for what he'd lost, Mello didn't react.

When he had gotten far enough away, however, the blond ducked into a small café, knowing they'd be looking for him once the man noticed the absence of his cash, and recognizing that they wouldn't expect him to put himself somewhere so public.

He bought himself a hot cocoa and sat down to think.

He had made it this far, and the next step was to get himself into the Mafia. He was alone, and unarmed except for a combat knife, while they would surely have numerous men with guns. He was in a lot of shit, he noted, annoyedly, and knew he didn't have many options.

His best bet, he realized, was to show them just what he could do, and the only way to show them was to put himself within their midst. It was no longer time for careful planning and inconspicuous shrewdness. It was time for dangerous action. There had been a few places listed as possibilities for the Mafia's stronghold, and all he had left to do was to check them out himself, and then break into the one that was _right_.

When he finally found the place, a pier warehouse where the cargo was suspicious and the men too well-dressed for sailors, he hid behind a cargo crate and held the rosary he wore in one hand, crossing himself with the other. His prayer was simple: "_God, please let me live through this. I can't afford to die here_."

When he was inside, after having snuck in behind some shipments as they went through the doors, he stood in the midst of a group of men, in plain sight.

"Hey, look what we have here. It's a little rat."

Mello had always heard, during his childhood, the cliché that said history repeats itself. As he grew, he began to take more and more stock in that saying during each time it was proven true. But where the last time he had intruded on the home of a gang had been completely by accident, this was on purpose, and he had all intention of getting caught.

It may have been a stupid move, he realized as he pulled out his knife and held it toward them even as they drew their guns, going back to thoughts (too late) that the smartest choice would have been to keep up his charade as Lee's brother Adrian and use her and the connections with the government, but the government was too _slow_, too _controlled_, and who knew if they were on his side or Kira's in the end?

By this time, however, Mello was getting used to run-ins with the Reaper, and facing death when he already should have died five times over was probably wearing God's patience thin, but he had the chance (and it was the _possibility _that mattered) to gain unregulated, truly dangerous allies that, even if they didn't manage to stop Kira, would definitely be able to scare him shitless.

He dropped the knife to the ground, making it clear that he had held it out to show that he was now unarmed, not to attack.

When they threw him against the wall and bound his hands behind him, he didn't resist. When they put a gun against his head and asked him why he was there, he told them the blatant truth: "I want to get in with you. I want to be one of you. I need what you have."

When one of them hit him, hard, with the back end of his pistol, he found himself laughing, even though he knew it was crazy to do it.

"What the fuck is so funny, you little brat?"

Mello's face was cast down to the ground, his hair staining red where his skin had split with the blow, the blood streaming down and catching in the upturned crease of his mouth. "Last time I did this, they stabbed me," he chuckled. "I'd expected Mafia to be much worse than a little street gang."

Why was he saying these things? Did he really want death, after all?

Something about the situation, though--even as the man knocked him to the ground, where he landed, hard, unable to catch himself; even as another guy kicked him in the gut--seemed so ironic, so funny, so _sad_ (What a mess you've gotten yourself into this time, Mello!) that he couldn't stop laughing. Even as they shot a bullet into the floor in front of his nose, even as they screamed at him that he was nuts, he laughed.

"Don't touch him again. If you lay one hand on him--one more cut or bruise--I will shoot you in the head."

Mello didn't know who had said it, but he laughed even as he relished in the sound of a savior come to rescue him. "Oh, how easy it was, God!" he screamed out loud, and a couple of the men backed up. "Just pray for safety, and I won't die! It's like you're letting me use you! It's like you love me more than you should! Why me? Why am I the special one?"

"Are you sure, boss? Him? He's gone mad, by the looks of it."

"Yes, I want him. He's the one I've been waiting for, I think. He'll save me…"

And Mello laughed harder, "Save him? Did you hear that, God? Everyone believes in me! Why? Why, when I don't believe in myself?"

The man grabbed Mello's face, hard, and made sure the boy was looking at him. "He'll save me from that incessant boredom I've had to face with that last loose pussy."

The laughter didn't stop, but there was a coldness that washed over Mello at the words. "And here it is, God, right? My lesson? I only asked not to die…I only asked for life…"

"Yes, that's right, I won't let them kill you" the man purred, kneeling down close to him. "Not another scratch. Not another bruise. You're a pretty one, and I'd like to keep you that way."

Mello saw a weakness, and he spit in the man's face, smiling ferally, because the guy had just blatantly told him that he would not retaliate.

"Yes," said the boss, wiping the saliva from his visage. "Yes, you will do well to end my boredom. Breaking you will be fun."

The boss was a large man, and strong. It was that moment when Mello suddenly realized that, even if he weren't handcuffed and lying, prone, on the cold concrete floor, that he wouldn't be able to resist this man. Had he not been surrounded by more than ten men with guns, he still would not have been able to retaliate. It was because of this that he kept laughing until they put the gag in his mouth; until the man placed the rag of chloroform under his nose and hoisted him limply over his shoulder.

He woke in an unfamiliar bed, his body tied to the posts, his skin bare against the silken sheets beneath him. He was stomach-down so he couldn't see the room, save for a bit of the bedside table and part of one wall, and his head was turned uncomfortably on the mattress, without the extra cushioning of a pillow. The moment in the mafia hideout had seemed so unreal, but now, with his bruised ribs pushing painfully against the still-too-hard bed and the gag still in his mouth so he couldn't scream--when he felt large hands on his back, which then ran down to his spread legs and caressed them almost reverently--everything suddenly became too true.

Mello began to flail as wildly as he could, almost lifting himself from the mattress as the ropes on his wrists and ankles pulled tight and chafed into him. He was making as much noise as he could through the cloth between his teeth, and his eyes started to water from his fear and from the pain in his limbs.

The hand pushed down on the small of his back, urging him to hold still, and when he didn't, the owner of that hand hissed, "Be still, whelp! I can't go hurting you too bad on the first time, can I? You have to _relax_."

It was an absurd request (Or was it an order?), but Mello stilled, knowing full well that he couldn't escape and was just making things harder. The man hummed behind him, content, and then the bed shifted, and the blond could hear the sound of a drawer opening behind him. When the weight on the bed returned, he tensed involuntarily, and then cold liquid dripped onto him, which was then massaged down between his legs, and tentatively into him with one of the man's fingers.

"I like the way you squirm, Pet."

Mello's eyes were wide, and he tried as hard as he could to think straight as pain and something else shot up his spine. If this man liked how he squirmed, he would just have to stay still, he reasoned, but when cold metal was pressed against him and then slowly, slowly, _slowly_ inside, he twitched involuntarily, and bit so hard on the gag that he almost bit through.

The thing that had invaded him was pulsing, now, as the man moved it within him, and Mello wanted, more than anything, to just be able to _scream_, but all he managed was a stifled whimper.

When it pulled out of him, he collapsed, relieved, his breath fast and burning through his nose, his tears staining the silken sheets.

The man chuckled at him, calmly, and then, for the first time, Mello noticed the soft, scared sound of a female voice somewhere to the side and just out of his sight. It sounded as if she were gagged, too, and he wondered if to another bed or what. When the boss spoke again, it was to her.

"Are you watching carefully, whore? See how he squirms and writhes? Isn't it beautiful?" The woman whimpered pitifully. "But you…you, my dear, stopped that a long time ago. Have you grown bored with me? I have with you."

Mello convulsed again as he felt a new something pressed against him, and hands ran down his back. The man leaned close over him and whispered in his ear. "This, Pet, is going to hurt."

He pulled the gag from Mello's mouth, and pushed himself, hard, inside the boy.

Mello's strangled screech blended with the sound of the boss's gun firing.

Mello screamed. From then, however, the woman was silent.

When the ropes were off of Mello's hands and feet, he curled into a ball on the bed, his limbs spreading wetness of all kinds over the silk. He could see the woman clearly then, her blood and brains splattered on the wall behind the chair where she had been tied.

"This is your room now, Pet. If you're good, you can keep it for a long time. Just be sure to keep things…interesting?"

Mello said nothing, but curled tighter in on himself, shaking.

The boss's house was luxurious, to say the least, and Mello treated practically like a king. At times, he could almost forget that, come night when his master got home, he would be torn into again and again.

After that first night, he always wore Mama's rosary, which he'd found on the bedside table with his own once he'd recovered enough to look for it. The boss liked this a lot, he said, because it made him feel dirty, and there were times when he would play the role of priest, giving Mello that of choir boy, and he would tell him again and again to "Sing for him" as he shoved him into the bed or the walls or the hard edges of tables, and Mello hated the man more for calling himself Catholic and then practicing such blasphemy.

For a long time, Mello was always handcuffed when the boss fucked him. The man said it was because he hadn't gained his trust. So, day after day, Mello played his roles better, screaming more sweetly and squirming more beautifully until, finally, the boss walked into his room, and his hands were empty of the metal cuffs that he always carried.

"You've been a good pet. I think it's finally time I let you off your leash."

"What is it today, Master?" Mello asked obediently, sitting on the edge of the bed. He reached down and undid his own pants and slid them off, leaving him with only a shirt, as he was not allowed undergarments.

"You look so beautiful today, Pet. I want to watch you pleasure yourself for a while. I've never gotten to see what your hands can do."

"Very well, Master."

The man was visibly aroused from the moment Mello first touched himself, and it wasn't long before he was overcome with lust and undid his pants without taking them off, shoving the blond against the wall roughly.

There was a maid outside of the room, and in a pure fit of morbid fascination, she stopped outside the door to try and hear what was going on. She knew about the boy her employer kept locked in the room. She had seen him a few times, even, when she'd been asked to bring him food. She had a suspicion she knew what happened in those walls at night, but couldn't help but to make sure.

What she heard was a hard pounding on the wall, accompanied by the boss's moans and Mello's fake cries of pleasure and real cries of pain. It wasn't long before the pounding stopped with one last, loud groan from the boss.

But then, the sounds changed. There was a sudden shout of fear, and cries for help. There was a light click.

More cries, begging now, pleading.

It was the master who was crying, not the boy.

There was a loud, resounding bang that could have been heard even if the maid hadn't been right next to the door, but which was almost deafening at that close proximity. There was the sound of liquid hitting the wall, and then a dull thud.

She threw the door open to see the boy, shaking and half-nude with the boss' own gun in his hands. The boss, himself, was slumped, dead, against the wall, his blood re-marking the new paint that had replaced the already-stained layer under it.

As the maid stepped closer, the blond pointed the gun at her, screaming, "Don't come any closer, or I'll shoot you, too!"

She backed up and ran out of the room, running to her own and packing her things, knowing that she couldn't call the cops; not when she had been working for a known Mafia leader.

Mello, finally alone except for the macabre sight of the man in front of him, dropped the gun to the ground, his hands quaking violently.

He had killed a man…killed his "Master" with his own gun, while the man was weak and faint with orgasm. Mello had blood and semen running down his legs, and his hair and the shirt he was still wearing were sticking to his skin with the cold sweat that had covered his body. He turned, sick, away from the boss, and ran into the bathroom that connected to his bedroom, kneeling into the toilet and retching into it until his stomach was past empty, the last painful hacks dry and agonizing.

From there, he crawled into the shower, turning it on without taking off his shirt or his rosary, curling into the far corner and rocking back and forth as the warm water cleansed his body, but not his mind.

He stayed like that, rocking until his hands and feet were swollen and heavily creased with too much moisture. He figured he was probably crying, but couldn't tell the tears apart from the other streams running down his cheeks.

This was the last time Mello ever shed tears, up until the moment of his death.


	9. And lead us

**Miya's Note: I'M NOT DEAD!**

**You have no clue how sorry I am for the wait for this update. This story is killing me like no other before it. This part was going to be even longer, but I ended up hacking the chapter in HALF. (No worries, though, because it's a pretty damned good length. 24 pages, 10 font good for you?) **

**Trying to write out a good third of an entire manga series, with embellishment, in ONE chapter? WHILE working around one of the most stressful school quarters I've ever had? **

**Not a good idea.**

**My apologies, everyone.**

**I really love this chapter, though, and I also assure everyone that what I have of the next two (there are going to be a total of 11 chapters, now. Ch. 10 is currently already over 10 pages, Ch. 11 a little shorter, and they will both grow tremendously before I submit them) is extremely close to my heart as well, and I'm hoping the entire ending of this story will make up for the long updates. I have no clue when Part 10 will come, but it WILL come, so don't get discouraged. I'm just having to work TR into a schedule that also includes trying to have a social life and get small amounts of sleep on top of school (and, soon enough, hopefully, a job, though I'll be trading more time in for an income). **

**I'm going to stop ranting, now, and let you guys get onto reading. God knows you deserve it.**

* * *

**And lead us…**

"Did you do that? Out there?" asked one of the mafia men, hours later, when the water had gone cold and painful, like acid on the blond's skin.

The boy nodded slightly as he curled in on himself protectively, looking up only slightly before his reddened eyes cast down again toward his knees.

The man turned the water off, and Mello twitched as a towel was tossed onto him.

"Then this is yours now," the man said, kneeling down and holding out the boss' Beretta. The blond took it, wordlessly, and then stood, wrapping the towel around his waist. He held the weapon limply by his side, his face blank and emotionless, and pushed past the man and walked dazedly into his room, past the body and to his pants, where he, before anything else, dug his own rosary out of his pocket and held it to his mother's on his chest.

"I'll leave, so you can get dressed," said the mafia man, and Mello scoffed at the show of feigned polite respect.

"You can watch all you want. I don't care," he snarled, turning quickly, his wet hair throwing water in drops around him, the gun waving manically through the air. "I'll even put on a little show, if you'd like. It isn't as if I have any pride left!" From the screaming, though, he got very quiet, and he smiled darkly, his teeth flashing as he did. He motioned his head toward the dead man against the wall. "Just don't enjoy it too much, hm?"

The man took that as a hint to leave, and he shut the door behind him. When the door clicked shut, the blond threw the gun on the bed, sighing. He ran his hands over his face a few times, groaning, and then undid the buttons on his sopping shirt, indifferently letting it fall to the carpet. He dried himself quickly, and then put on his pants and dug a shirt from his closet. His hair had gotten long and messy, and he tied it in a haphazard knot before he slumped onto his mattress.

His rosary was still in his hand, and he stared down at it, angry at God and his own sins and weakness; afraid of the consequences of his actions and his future--both during life and after.

He had killed twice now, with the rosary in his hand and the gun on the sheets beside him, and the thought of it made him delirious with pain and hate and dread…and power. The tiny cross shimmered dully in the light, the cheap silver plating wearing thin in places.

God had brought him here, to this place. It was God who had answered his prayer, saving him from death by giving him to the sinner who's soul was surely facing Hell, now that Mello had sent him to the fires. God no longer sent down plagues on man, himself; weakened, the blond presumed, as humanity grew more corrupt and tiring to its creator. No, God had sent Mello, this time, to judge the Sodomite whose blood streaked the wall of that sinful house.

He prayed for forgiveness for killing and for having let the man fuck him.

Still, he could feel within him the dirty blackness of his soul's transgressions, choking and petulant, and he knew that he was absolved, but still not clean. Enraged that God would lay such burdens upon him, he sought to repeat past sins in mockery, knowing he would face no divine retaliation this time, because he felt he had nobody left to receive the punishment for him.

He grasped the tiny rosary in both hands and pulled it apart at the axis, the beads flying in all directions.

He cradled the cross in his palm in a strange kind of careful contempt that would have looked almost like reverent adoration had his smile been more sincere. He fiddled with what was left of the chain carefully, chuckling inwardly as he picked up the gun and looked at it curiously. Its previous owner had obviously been very meticulous in its care, as the metal was shiny and bright in the overhead lights. He marveled at its construction--Man had created this tool of Judgment, not God--and ran the barrel down the side of his face like a caress, taunting.

_"I could cock this gun back, and fire, and end it all, God,_" he whispered with a smile, waving the even more broken rosary in front of his face hypnotically. To demonstrate, he readied the weapon and then continued his mockery. "_But you wouldn't want that, would you…Master? If you really want to stop me, then do it, or you get to watch your beautiful human pet put a bullet through his skull."_

The blond had just started to put pressure on the trigger, but it was at that moment that the man who had given Mello the gun knocked on the door.

"_Oh? Shame, and I almost thought you'd let me kill myself. Your bad."_

The man opened the door and walked in apprehensively. "Sir, are you alright?"

Mello was not facing the man, but he could see him in the standing mirror in the corner. "Are you alone, or did you bring others?"

"There are three others in the foyer, Sir."

Mello smiled. "Good, I want someone to hear this."

He fired.

The man grasped at his chest; stumbled back and tripped. He fell to the ground, cringing, and Mello stood and towered over him, emptying the clip with a few more shots to make sure his cruelty was noticed by the other men and the Lord, and when the other mafia members ran to him, he was still pulling the trigger, again and again.

_Click._

_Click. _

_Click._

They tried to wrestle the weapon from his grip, but he wouldn't let go, his fingers locked around the handle as his other hand gripped so hard on the cross that the metal cut into his palm. Mello retaliated by racking the barrel across someone's face with a loud "Crack", staring down at the man on the floor the entire time.

It was at this moment that Mello learned the power of fear, and, more importantly, how to use it. He marveled at it, how fear was _his_ this time to wield, not theirs. He took a last look at the man on the ground in front of him, and the man stared back, though his glasses had fallen off and he probably couldn't see him. The man cowered amidst the holes in the tile, his hand gripping his quickly beating heart, too frightened to be thankful that the blond had spared him.

Mello looked at the other men, gauging their reactions. The gun was empty, but he held the thing as if it were full; pointed it at their heads and their hearts and almost laughed at the way they still withered under his gaze and shifted uncomfortably in their spots. Mello's eyes flashed with some unknown fire, and he cocked the gun, although he knew as well as they did that he had rendered it harmless.

Was it pointless? He was taunting them. They had _seen _him fire until there was nothing left to fire, and yet he watched them like he knew some trick they didn't to form bullets out of air. He stepped forward. A few of them stepped back, as if believing that he had that power.

When Mello pulled the trigger, the grown men in front of him flinched. His cries of "BANG!" echoed in the palpable silence the boy had rendered in the air, and his laughs rang out like they had in the mafia hideout like the shrieking cackles of some madman or devil.

One of the men finally pulled his gun out and pointed it back at him.

Mello stepped forward again, locking eyes with that man, as if he not only had the ability to create bullets, but to repel them. Mello was not afraid. He knew he had no reason to be. Guns, he had discovered, could kill, but they were, above all else, weapons of terror. It was the finger on the trigger he was fighting. If the fear he brandished was stronger than the man's, then even his empty gun could beat a loaded one.

The man's hands were shaking, and Mello walked right up to him and moved those hands so that the gun was pointing away from him. He put his Beretta to the guy's skull, and watched and relished as a grown man shrunk away from what may as well have been a child's toy.

It was at that moment that someone started clapping.

"You have quite the audacity, for a plaything."

Mello turned around so quickly that his hair came untied, and the Beretta pointed at a tall, bald man with a goatee, who Mello had never seen before. "I'm no toy! Your boss found that out the hard way!" the blond screamed, his eyes wild and his hair disheveled. He looked rather deranged, especially next to the new intruder, who stood, calmly, in front of him.

With Mello's back turned, more of the Mafia members drew their weapons. The new man waved them off. "Don't kill him. He's probably the most capable man in the lot of you cowards. He deserves better than a dishonorable bullet to the back."

"I want in," the blond hissed, simply.

"As far as I'm concerned, you already are. You killed the old lecher that I'd been trying to off for years, and you made my men seem like babies. You even got Neylon back to crawling on the floor like one."

"You're not gonna cry like the rest of them?" Mello taunted, waving his gun in the air.

The man smiled. "No, not this time, I'm afraid. They call me Rod, here, and I was the second-in-command, which means that I'm the boss now."

"And what does that make me, since I killed the guy? Shouldn't _I _be the one in charge here?"

Rod laughed. "You're pretty sharp, but there would be just one problem with putting you in charge: You don't know _shit_ about what it means to be in the mob. You may have killed a guy, and you may have scared my men, but I doubt you've ever blown the brains out of someone's Mommy because Daddy wouldn't pay up, or sent someone blindfolded off the edge of a yacht because he betrayed the group. That's some of the lighter shit I've done, and I'll be damned if some old lecher's living dildo is gonna boss me around, just because he gave the guy a fluke shot to the brain."

Mello scoffed back, undaunted. "Fine. You're the boss, and I'm your second-in-command. I've spent my entire life as Number 2, so this should be no different." The blond almost seemed to twitch at the idea, and his eyes went a little darker with carefully contained rage. "But you'd better watch your back. I never have liked authority."

"You are one determined little brat. You keep saying you want in. There's gotta be a reason. What is it? Fame? Money? Drugs?"

"_Kira_. I want his head."

Rod smiled at that, and it was a wicked, heartless smile. He didn't need to hear anything more. No need for a why or a how. "Then you and I have something in common."

He had gotten in with bloodshed, and it was the bloodshed he'd promised that gained him his position. From that moment, the young Mello from Wammy's House for the Gifted was dead, as if he really had pulled the trigger on himself in that stained room. Geniuses are good at lies--good at putting on acts--and it was at that moment that Mello first began to truly lie to himself.

The mask he wore was the gravestone on his past.

Mello was not a hardened criminal, but he had to act like one, look like one, speak like one…he had to, essentially, lose a life's worth of morality in an instant. This was a task, indeed, that would have driven any normal man mad.

Mello, however, was no man, he knew, but an Angel of Judgment sent by God himself to judge the biggest sinner and blasphemer of the century.

As an angel, it was only proper that he have a holy sword, that being a mix of the two things with which he had killed. He had taken some tools back at the Mafia hideout and attached what was left of the broken rosary to the handle of the Beretta. It was a significance that nobody but him understood, which held a secret that only he knew. If Mello was an actor, the gun was his prop. It was something holy that had been defiled, attached to something deadly rendered harmless--a balance of good and evil, black and white.

He never did refill the bullets, because he never intended to have to fire another shot.

Every good actor needs costumes as well; every angel, his robes and his wings. There was something so satisfying about leather, Mello realized. It was harsh and cold, as only the dead flesh of another creature could be; a mockery of God's holy creation of Life. He was given all of the finest clothing. His hair had been cut back to its normal length and immaculate style. His coat was decked with feathers of the blackest black, like raven's wings instead of the doves' wings on normal angels' backs.

Mello, being smart, knew where his power lay: In fear, and in sex. Whereas Rod got by with his years-long status and his brute force, Mello ruled beside him with shrewdness and cunning, using his conveniently feminine looks to break wills that would have normally been impossible to even bend. All of his leather fit tightly on his body, and he showed skin that he never would have dared to show before. His eyes were lined with makeup, and his fingernails were painted the same shiny black as his clothing.

It may sound ironic for a man of God to present himself this way, but it was in his looks that Mello hid the last traces of his frightened adolescent self and kept his purity intact. Even though Mello turned heads wherever he walked, even though he awakened the lusts of those around him, it was easy for them to overlook, in their fantasies, the way his belt buckle (the silver cross on it a ward from God in hopes of protecting him and cleansing him from past sins) was on so tightly, and the laces on his pants both held him uncomfortably restrained and held any others out.

Mello was the puppeteer, with strings of seduction and terror tying his painted fingers to his mafia marionettes, and it wasn't long before Rod had become just a puppet, too, wanting so badly to have him and admiring his body and his mind so much, but unable to reach him, as he hovered so high above his peons' heads.

By three years after he had left the House, Mello had broken all ten commandments and committed all of the cardinal sins. He had gone back to praying every day, hoping to salvage some of his blackened soul and trusting in the Lord that he would not be used and then cast away when he was done. God's hand had led him well, indeed, as the mafia had proven to be a vital asset to him. As he and Jack had anticipated, the men of high crime were almost as determined to find Kira as he, and he was making progress that he never would have been able to make on his own. Kira was in Japan, most likely connected to the police. He knew that. From then, the next step would be trying to bring the killer out of hiding, and already they were gathering resources, multiple hideouts, and plans.

Nonetheless, there was that vital piece of information that was missing. It was that elusive thing that they needed to move on: The knowledge of how Kira killed.

Mello figured that L had found the information out before he'd been murdered, which meant that Near, as L's successor, probably had exactly what he needed.

_Near._

The thought of it haunted Mello for weeks. Already, he had given up so much in his investigations, and yet he would never be L's heir, while Near, who had surely never had to risk his very life for justice, had probably already acquired the missing link, without so much as lifting a finger. It was just like it had always been, with Mello working so hard and Near barely working at all, and yet the blond was always just that one step behind.

For a while, Mello settled on helping the mafia with other tasks, in an effort to keep his mind off of the situation. Though he hated the idea of furthering criminal activity, he had realized quickly that he took a kind of sick pleasure in his status, as he, a man who'd lost his true name and who knew never to show his face in public, was an untouchable force--an ever-present invisible criminal that Kira couldn't kill.

Rod liked to brag that the way things were done had changed when Mello had joined the ranks. He liked it, he said, that things had gotten so much more subtle. Drug trades no longer required ten men with semi-automatics standing on guard, because they were better informed and better prepared. More dangerous trades took place in secret underground locations of Mello's ingenious and infallible design.

Mello's methods were so effective that people soon stopped noticing that the blond never did any of the dirty work. Instead, Mello gained a reputation for being the most dangerous man the mafia had ever seen, not because of the number of people he had killed, but because he had his men trained so well and the techniques perfected to such an art that nobody in their right minds would have tried to kill _him_.

Mello liked his status quite a lot, because in that place, at that time, he was the best. He made sure that word of his actions got out; how the mafia had fallen under new rule, while papers and television completely overlooked Rod. Since he could not be L, he had become M to his enemies and the media, and he hoped that Near saw that, and _knew_, and feared.

Mello enjoyed inventing new tricks, and safeguards, and traps. He liked things flashy, but efficient. The creation of these things--specialized sensors, new chemicals to immobilize enemies, specially modified cameras for their hideouts, and more--let him use his intelligence productively and kept his mind off of his annoyances and his downfalls.

In the end, however, he was too fast at creating, and things were too effective, and he soon ran out of new things to invent.

The Kira investigation, for a time, had come to a standstill. Mafia affairs were going smoothly. Mello was restless. He put on large sunglasses to hide his eyes, he concealed his face behind the feathers on his coat, and he, quite simply, took a walk.

He needed space.

He needed fresh air (or as close to it as one could find on the Los Angeles streets).

Above all, Mello needed--yearned for--_freedom_.

Freedom, he had learned in those past months living on the street, living with a gang, living with the mob…just trying to live at all…Freedom--true freedom--was being able to live for himself.

All his life (and it's ironic to say "his", because it never had been) had been lived for other people. His early childhood had been for his parents and for God. When his parents had died, God's watch had not. Then, he had moved to Wammy's, where he lived his every breathing moment for L--to please L, to _become_ L--and when Near took L from him, and then when L wasn't there anymore to get back, he had given his life away for vengeance, God still judging his every step as he, himself, played Judge.

He had been Mihael, son of the Keehls and of God; Mello, L's protégé and, later, avenger; but never had he been just Mihael--just Mello.

No, wait…No, that was wrong, Mello realized suddenly as he wandered aimlessly down the L.A. sidewalks.

It had been too long since he had last taken time for himself to think. Out of the corners of his vision, he caught the common people's eyes. He watched them as they stared and lusted and feared.

They were no different from the mafia men.

But he thought back to one time--one shining moment in his history--where, though he hadn't lived completely for himself (He could never, would never…wouldn't even know how to begin…), there had been somebody he had never felt he'd had to impress.

There was one man on the street who didn't seem to notice him, and that fact made the man stand out more than any person who had gasped or gawped or covered their children's eyes. The man was walking down the sidewalk toward him quite slowly, his gaze fixed on something in his hands. His face was also mostly covered, and he would occasionally bump into people as he moved, muttering half-aware apologies around the butt of a burnt-out cigarette as businessmen griped and continued quickly on their ways to work.

It was on that day, in that shining moment in Mello's history, that the only person who had ever lived _for Mello_ walked, equally aimlessly, down the same L.A. sidewalk.

Mello stopped where he was and stared at this man like others stared at his leathers and his feathers, and he made sure to stand where he knew he was blocking the guy's path.

The man's shoulder bumped into him, and the guy apologized quietly. When Mello replied--as he bit off a chunk of the chocolate bar in his hand with a snap--with an "It's quite alright," in an accent that sounded like a mix of British and something more foreign, the burnt cigarette fell from the man's lips, and he stopped, finally looking up from the thing in his hands, which on closer inspection was some kind of portable game.

"It can't be. No way," the man said, and his voice was familiar, but more gruff from years gone by and smoke in lungs than remembered.

"Why are you here?" asked Mello, clearly stunned.

"I was looking for you."

"Really." It was a statement of near-emotionless disbelief, not a question.

The man took a deep breath, dropping the hand with the game to his side, its tinny music still playing in the background. "I thought I was on a wild goose chase, but I see that I was wrong."

"Apparently. It's been a long time, Matt."

The two simply stared at each other for a very long time, taking in every detail, each seeming as if he were expecting the other to disappear at any moment; just a figment of his wild imagination. Matt's hair was almost exactly as Mello remembered it: almost awkwardly (almost unnaturally) red, and messy. He still wore goggles (which Mello was glad for, with Kira around), and his shirt was decked with stripes, much like those on many of the redhead's childhood favorite garments. His face, thankfully, was further covered by a fur-lined vest that, zipped up, had a collar that came up over his mouth. It was strange seeing him there, and, Mello imagined, it was probably stranger for Matt, whose head was nodding slightly as he looked his friend over.

"You look…different." It was a clipped response, at best.

Mello tried to gauge the reaction, but failed, and figured that Matt was in shock from seeing his childhood friend dressed so provocatively. "I know. You look almost the same, but older."

"Yeah."

They stared at each other for another moment, but it didn't prove too effective with sunglasses and goggles and feathers and fur in the way. Mello was attempting to stay calm, and he wondered if Matt was having the same problem he was. He wanted to unzip the vest and throw off the goggles and make sure that it was really Matt. If it wasn't, he would kill whoever was playing such a trick on him. If it was, indeed, his friend, he didn't know what he would do.

Matt seemed to notice how Mello had been lost in thought, and chipped in with, "This is awkward, man. Let's go somewhere, so we can talk."

Mello shook off his thoughts. "Alright. We can't go to the hideout, and I don't want to go to your place and risk someone's following us there, so where do you want to go?"

"You've gotten yourself into some deep shit, you know that?" was Matt's somber reply. "I was heading to this little café when you caught me. 'S got some nice dark corners, and it's pretty low-key." He chuckled, and it sounded distinctly uncomfortable. "I hear they have great hot chocolate."

Mello laughed a little at that. "It sounds great."

They walked down the street without saying much, until Matt couldn't stand the silence anymore. "You know, it feels like we're goin' on some kind of weird blind date."

"It kind of does."

"And this isn't gonna make it sound much less awkward, but I missed you, man."

"Same here."

Matt turned his gaze toward Mello as they walked, and Mello turned back. The blond thought his friend may have smiled at him, but couldn't really tell, because of the vest. Mello smiled back, slightly, and knew Matt couldn't see it, either, but hoped he could still tell.

When they arrived at the café, they picked a table at the very back. The both of them laughed when they saw the candles on the table that highlighted the romantic, flowery centerpiece.

"Yeah, I kind of failed to mention that part," said Matt, scratching the back of his head.

Mello laughed a little harder, and then couldn't hold back what came across as almost utter hysteria when Matt pulled out a chair for him to sit down. He smacked the redhead lightly upside the head, but took the chair, and then glared when Matt pushed it in for him. The other man took his seat across the table, and it was almost as if they were back at Wammy's, during times when they would taunt Brad with his own jokes, not caring if they furthered rumors or not, and trusting in each other's friendship.

"You really haven't changed much, have you?" Mello said, knowing it was stupid with Kira an ever-present threat, but finally trusting enough that this was really Matt to slip out of his jacket and take off his sunglasses. He stared at the redhead in an unspoken urge for him to do likewise.

When they could actually see each others' faces, it was like it all suddenly became real.

A waitress came by, and they ordered drinks, which they waited for in silence, until they arrived.

"It really is you, isn't it?" Matt asked, quietly, feeling around in one of his vest pockets.

"I was about to say the same thing." Mello blew over the top of his cup of hot cocoa in an attempt to cool it down. Matt watched him swipe up a bit of whipped cream and lick it off of his finger.

"You really do look different." The redhead continued to dig in his pockets, getting a little flustered. "Could you, um, pass me the ashtray?"

Mello did, but hesitantly. "You sound nervous."

"I am." Matt finally pulled his cigarettes out of a pocket and lit one up, taking a long drag.

"When did you start smoking?"

"Right after I left Wammy's. The streets'll do that to you."

Mello grunted slightly. "You actually looked for me? All the way to L.A.?"

"The little gang I was in, we got hold of this old, broken-down computer. I fixed it, and hacked us net access, and started looking into Kira. It was the first thing that came to mind, you know?"

"I do."

"After a while, I started finding these Kira support sites. Basically, they were these places where people pointed out criminals and other people they wanted him to kill. It was fucking barbaric, people posting pictures and names of their enemies or people they just didn't like in hopes that Kira would off them. And for some reason--and I don't know why--I kept thinking that I'd find you in there."

Mello's brow furrowed. "As a target or a poster to the site?"

"Target, of course, because I knew you'd be trying to get revenge on Kira for what he did to L, and that you'd use any means necessary." Matt laughed. "Although I did have a thought that, if this weren't Kira we were talking about, you may have put Near on there."

Mello almost seemed to growl at that.

"I know! I know, but it was just one of those passing thoughts, and then I realized it was ridiculous. I know you hate the guy, but I also know you'd never stoop so low."

"Well, at least you have that much faith in me."

The two had a bit of a glare-off, which ended in Mello giving a bit of a cocky smirk as Matt looked away with a chuckle.

"And then," the redhead continued, undaunted, though he didn't reestablish eye-contact, "right when I was about to give up looking, there you were. 'Kill M,' they said. Over and over again, I saw it, for weeks. 'He's the worst of the worst. M, of the Catholic Mafia. The scum of the United States…no, of the Earth.' I was more than a little freaked out when I saw that, I'll tell you. I really didn't want to believe that you were Mafia, but I just knew it was you, somehow, like I could see you on that site, even though all they had was a single letter in place of a name. It was too reminiscent of L to not be you. Plus…you know…Catholic…" he pointed at the rosary on Mello's chest.

"Of course."

"From there, I started researching, and every little bit of information I found confirmed again that it was you. You'll at least be glad to know that nobody ever did put down a picture, or a real name, but that the way they talked about you…almost all the papers and stuff had these rumors that you were amazing. Terrifying, and amazing. It's…a little daunting to be sitting in front of you now."

"Well, at least if I'm scum, I'm the best motherfucking scum there is."

Matt slapped his forehead. "Well, at least you haven't completely changed. You're still a cocky fuck."

"Always. If I wasn't, I just wouldn't be myself."

"I'm glad I found you."

"So am I."

"Even if you are in the Mafia."

"Yes, even if." Mello leaned over the table, serious, pushing his then-empty cup to the side. "Speaking of which, I don't want you to try and contact me. It's too dangerous."

Matt stared at him like he had grown a second head. "Mello, I tracked you down _across the ocean_. I'm not going to just let you slip off, just because you've become this dark and mysterious Mafioso."

"I'm not saying I'm just gonna leave and never talk to you again. I'm just saying that regular means of contact would be too risky. I don't want you getting yourself killed when you've just found me again."

"Mello, I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Why? Why the Mafia?"

"Criminals are against Kira, just as much as Kira is against criminals."

"It's dangerous, though. Really dangerous. You just said so yourself."

"I know."

"I don't want to lose you again."

Mello sighed, flagging the waitress over and asking for drink refills for both himself and Matt, who was having coffee. "Why did you leave the House?"

Matt didn't answer until his coffee had arrived. "I was scared. L was dead, and I knew damn well I wasn't gonna be the one he picked to succeed him, with both you and Near ahead of me. Even worse, I knew how much you looked up to him, and how much you wanted it to be you that he picked…but I also knew that you probably weren't."

"He didn't pick anybody."

"Well, since you're here now, it's at least obvious that it wasn't you, either way." Matt put out the last of his cigarette and took a sip of coffee, before recoiling slightly and dumping a rather large amount of sugar into it. Mello noticed this, and smiled internally at the way even the Third had kept a piece of their role-model alive. Matt continued, between sips of the heavily-sweetened drink. "The thing I was so scared of, I think, was seeing you break down. I know how much L meant to you, and I know how much it hurt you every time Near seemed closer to him than you did. I knew that losing L would be like losing family to you…I didn't know what you were like after you lost your parents, and I didn't want to find out. It was stupid of me to leave without you, and don't think I didn't regret it from the moment I did it, because I did. That's why I came looking for you. I wanted…I needed to apologize."

Mello looked down at his refilled cocoa, running a finger over the brim of the cup absently. "Thank you, for finding me, and don't be sorry for leaving me behind. I would have just worried about you, anyway, if you had come with me for this. Some of the things I had to go through to get where I am…I wouldn't have wanted you involved. I mean, I worried about you anyway…but I know you're safe, now, and that's what matters."

"Thanks, Mello."

The blond looked up, his eyes alight with some spark as he smirked again. "Now, before we go getting all mushy and sentimental on each other, we need to think of a plan. Trading numbers and addresses won't work here, so we have to figure something out that's a bit more subtle."

"Ah, planning. Always fun. Feels like the old days." Matt smiled a little as he reminisced.

"You said you'd been hacking, correct? Do you think you could cook up anything with my cell phone?"

"Let me take a look at it," Matt said, holding out his hand. When Mello handed him the phone, he set it on the table and started looking through the pockets in his vest again. "Gotta find my supplies," Matt explained before Mello had the chance to ask.

The blond raised a brow inquisitively as the redhead pulled a small kit of tiny screwdrivers and other tools from one pocket.

"What?" Matt asked defensively against the amused look Mello was giving him. "It's always good to be prepared, right? What kind of crappy hacker would I be if I couldn't disassemble things on the spot? Beside, I need to check out the mechanics of this thing. It's not a model I've come across before."

"I trust that you, for the most part, know what you're doing?"

"Pretty much. I'd at least want to install a GPS device, so I don't lose track of you. And don't worry, it would be untraceable, unless of course your Mafia goons _also_ carry around tools and make a habit of taking things apart."

"No, I don't believe they do." Mello's head tilted slightly to the side. "What do you keep in those pockets, anyway?"

"Well, you saw the cigarettes, the tools, and my games. I also carry emergency rations, basic first aid…"

"Preparing for the Apocalypse, are we?"

"Pretty much. Or if I ever need to set out on an epic quest."

"Geek," Mello chuckled. "Is there a way, possibly, that you could put yourself in my phone as some kind of speed dial that won't come up in the regular address book?"

"Sure, but that's gonna take bypassing the normal interface of your phone, and the GPS isn't something I can do without the supplies I have back at my apartment."

"Meaning that you need to take it with you."

"Exactly."

Mello grunted slightly, and his pale brow-line furrowed under his bangs. "Not today," he sighed with a shake of his head that rustled his hair. "I'll have to get back, soon, and I'm afraid I can't go without a phone, as I'm expected to do a lot of the communication for the group."

"Well, then what are we going to do? I'm sure as hell not letting you get away from me again, that's for sure."

"We'll meet. This Friday, Rod--one of the leaders…the one who helped me to get where I am, and a dangerous man--will be out with a number of the other men, making a trade with one of the Italian mob groups. I am not going to be involved, and I'll be free to slink around on my own without interference from Rod, who is one of the few who would have the balls to question me. We'll meet then."

"Here?"

"At 2PM, sharp. Sound reasonable?"

"As long as you don't go and get yourself killed before then."

"Haven't died yet, have I? Don't plan on doing so anytime soon."

"I hope you're right." Matt smiled; a kind of soft, sad smile that seemed very reminiscent of ones he and Mello had shared as boys. "It's nice to see you, Mello. You have no idea, man. I honestly never thought I would again, after I left. I almost keep thinking I'm gonna wake up from some kind of cruel dream…it's so unreal, you know? Especially how we met up…almost like it's too convenient…"

"Now, we wonder why you would dream about me all decked out in leather." The blond drawled out teasingly, absently waving a hand through the air.

Matt's smile broadened into a true smirk at that. "Shut up, you."

Something about the back of the café seemed to have gotten stifling; claustrophobic like old and awkward times, but when the waitress brought the check, Matt hurriedly started searching in his pockets again for cash in a successful attempt to break the tension. As quickly as the strange feeling had come, it had gone again, like it had never been there at all.

"Don't bother," Mello said offhandedly. "I'll cover it." He pulled out his wallet, flipping through an impressive stack of bills. "12.27, was it? I think a 20 will suffice. Keep the change."

As the waitress smiled and walked off, Matt stared at his friend. "That was…generous."

"That was nothing. I could have given her 50 just as easily and not broken a sweat. There are certain…perks to being where I am, and trust me when I say it's money that I feel no guilt about getting off of my hands as quickly as possible."

Thinking of the undertones and implications of what Mello had said, Matt could only reply with a slightly uncomfortable "…Oh."

"Don't give me that," Mello hissed. "Your hands aren't perfectly clean, either, I'm sure. Beside, you know why I did what I did. I don't feel I should have to justify myself."

"And yet, you sound so defensive."

Whereas the air had grown stifling with heat before, it was a sudden chill that had taken over this time, as if a cold front had hit them, hard and unforgiving. "I'll see you on Friday," Mello replied darkly.

"Harsh," was all Matt said to that.

The blond set his elbows on the table's edge, and his head in his hands. He spoke into his own chest, again breaking the tension. Both men suddenly got the strange impression that time was moving at twice normal speed, every emotion possible racing through their minds at once, to make up for all of the time and feelings that they had lost in their years apart. "It's not only that…I actually do need to get going." He sighed, and Matt noticed that he sounded tired.

"Are you okay, man?" the redhead chanced, his voice barely above a whisper.

"No, not since L died, but I get by."

Matt stood and walked around the table, holding a hand out for Mello to take. "We'll find and catch Kira, and then it'll be better, right?"

Mello looked up, and then stood, grasping his companion's offering of comfort and swinging his other arm around the redhead's neck in a kind of hug, setting his chin on a striped shoulder. "I suppose."

Matt mirrored the other man's actions almost subconsciously. He didn't have to talk loudly at all for Mello to hear him. "I'm sorry I keep getting on your ass. It's just…it's not everybody who can say someone they've known since they were seven grew up to be in the Mafia."

Matt could feel the sly smile that formed by his neck. "Hey, I thought you, of all people, would be impressed by that. It's like one of your gory action games, with a sexy Mafia protagonist with great style and a sparkling personality."

Matt raised one brow, and one corner of his mouth curled up to match. "Right, Mello."

Mello broke the hug, putting his jacket and sunglasses back on and recomposing himself with a slight cough. "We'll talk on Friday. Two-o-clock, and not a minute later, right?"

"I'll be early."

Neither man said a goodbye. Mello smiled, barely visible and lightening-quick under his feathers, and Matt nodded back with a bit of a smirk. Mello turned and walked away, his hair and coat swishing around him in a subtly graceful manner as he did.

Matt watched him go, unsure of which of the countless emotions he was feeling was the cause of the knot that formed in his stomach; unsure whether any of it was really there at all, just as he couldn't help but to doubt, still, that his meeting with his friend had been real.

Mello, too, felt strangely fazed by the encounter. He couldn't help but to be still caught in disbelief as well; both elated and, in a strange way, angered that someone he had spent what had seemed like far too long convincing himself was left behind in his life, never to be seen again, had suddenly reappeared with no warning and no going back.

For a cruel moment, Mello considered standing Matt up that Friday, unsure whether he'd be able to take meeting up with the man again. Hearing Matt chide him for his actions…being judged so harshly by his best friend when he'd already judged himself a thousand times before…hurt. But while a part of him wanted to shut Matt off completely--save himself from scolding glances that seemed so much worse, somehow, than his own glares in the mirror…and more, to save Matt from falling into sin like he had--seeing Matt again made Mello realize, more than ever, that he _needed_ the friendship that the redhead had given him, and knew that, Friday, come 2PM, he would be in the café again, drinking hot cocoa across from the only man who had ever lived for him.

It was Thursday when the implications of the day to come set in. When Mello had left the Wammy's House, he had set out to live his life alone. When Jack had died and he had left Lee behind, he had made a vow to never again take and hurt a friend. Yet, the next day, he would go back to Matt, his very _first friend_, and he would, he knew, live to return the favor that the redhead had given him so many times before.

It was this, perhaps, that led Mello to search the CIA records for his only _other_ living friend, realizing, more than ever, that he was still a lonely, lanky teenager caught up in something so much bigger than himself, and that he couldn't leave behind his past forever.

When he found the number, and he called it, he had almost-hoped that Lee would not pick up, but her voice rang clear and painfully familiar over the line, "Hello? Who is this?"

"Do not react to this call," replied Mello, his voice scrambled and strange, "and calmly go somewhere private."

He heard Lee excuse herself politely in the background, and then she came back over the line clearly, curiosity and fear lacing her voice. "What is this? Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"Are you alone?"

"Yes. I know better than to test the orders of a person I know nothing about. For all I know, you could be watching me right now, and if I were to lie to you…"

"Good. It's been a long time, Lee."

The voice of the woman was strained. "Nobody has called me that in a very long time. I ask again, who are you?"

The scrambler went off with a click. "My apologies for calling you under such strange circumstances, but I can't afford to take any risks..

"Mel…"

"Shhh," Mello hissed calmly and comfortingly. "As I said, I am not in a position where I can risk exposure, so please don't call me by name, or if you must, act like you are talking to your brother. I just want to speak to you."

"I haven't heard from you in ages…You ran away! You betrayed me, and you left me behind! To go where? This…_position _you're in…I send people like you to prison, where you become nothing but targets for Kira!"

"Lee, calm down. I'm calling you to make amends…to ask for your mutual help in _finding_ Kira."

"That's not my name anymore!" the woman snarled. "The _real_ Adrian called me that, and so did a boy, once, who reminded me of him, but, as far as I'm concerned, the both of them are dead."

"Fine," Mello snapped back over the line. "Forget all of that, forget the boy you knew--God knows I've been trying to forget _you_--but I ask for the favor that you at least try and forgive me long enough that we can work together. I know it's a lot to ask, and I know, even more, that I don't deserve the trust it would take for you to be able to do this, but you can't deny that Kira needs to be stopped, and it may take working on both sides of the law to do it; you on one side, and me on the other."

"Hal," was all that Lee said to that.

"What?"

"They call me Hal, now. I had to take an alias, and I couldn't go as Lee…not when there were people in the world, like you, who knew me by that name, so I took the last name of Lidner, and used the other half of my real first name. Halle. Hal, and Lee." Mello could hear the almost aloof, musing tone of the next statement. "So simple."

"Thank you." Mello was reassured by the admission, too, knowing that the woman's new name was most likely classified information and, because of that fact, that she wouldn't be able to tell him so easily if the call had been tapped.

Hal's voice was very quiet, but she went on, slowly and carefully. "I'm working for a special forces group, now, after having done work in both the CIA and Secret Service. They call it the SPK, or Special Provision for Kira. They picked me because I had the type of world experience they needed."

"You've come a long way. Congratulations."

The woman simply hummed at that, slight and barely noticeable.

"Listen…Hal, we need to make this quick, to avoid raising too much suspicion. Where are you right now?"

"I'm in the restroom. It is a single restroom with a lock and thick walls. I excused myself from the dinner I was having with some coworkers, and came here."

"Very good. What I need from you is any information you have on Kira. You said that you are working for a specialized group set on capturing him, so it is likely that you have information that I do not. Especially important is any information you may have regarding how he kills his victims."

"You said that we are going to trade. What do you have in return?"

"I doubtless have no knowledge that you lack. The men I've been working with and I have been caught in a kind of hold, and cannot move on further until we have something new. I, however, have no regulations preventing me from taking action with that information. You give me what I need, and I will acquire the murder weapon."

"You sound very certain of yourself."

"I am."

Hal's end of the line went almost-silent for a while after that, with heavy breathing as the only sound coming over the phone. When she continued, she sounded unsure, and a little afraid. "If I give you this information, it will compromise my job and more if somebody finds out. On the other hand, though, we have information that we, so far, have been able to do absolutely nothing with, and you have the strength to do something, but have no clue what it is that needs to be done."

"Exactly."

"If we work together, there's a chance that we could catch Kira."

"Yes."

"There's still one problem, though."

"And that is?"

"I joined the government to fight against the evils in our world, and you are now a part of those evils."

"I am perfectly aware of that, thank you, Hal," Mello sneered, darkly. "But sometimes it takes picking sides with the lesser evil to take the even greater one down. I learned that from somebody I admired very much, who had contacts with a lot of shady people, including con artists and thieves. Even the government that you work for, often times, has to dirty their hands to accomplish their goals." Mello's voice grew deadly serious. "Hal, you have to give me the information. If you do that, I will make sure that absolutely no one finds out that you were involved."

"What if I don't?"

The voice of the blond was unwavering, cold, and merciless. "Then I will have to take action to acquire what you have, without your consent."

"Would you really be able to do that?"

"If you are asking about my abilities, I assure you that it would be no problem getting what I need. If you are asking about what I am willing to do, even if that means taking drastic measures against a friend…Yes, I would be willing to hurt or even kill you if it meant getting closer to stopping Kira, as much as I would prefer to not have to go that far."

On Hal's end of the line, though Mello couldn't hear any of it, she leaned against the wall, her hand gripping her cell phone to her face, shaking in the realization that Mello--someone so much younger than herself, and someone she had trusted, once--had grown so brutally committed to vengeance. She wondered, then, what it was that was driving him. He had mentioned, once, about someone that Kira had killed, and she suddenly regretted not having asked him more about it. She realized, too, how vulnerable she was. She had opened herself up completely to the boy, and told him about everything in her life that she felt had truly mattered, and yet she knew so little about him. Now, if she didn't tell him more, and compromise everything she had worked so hard to attain, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her, and she'd be forced to fight back, or die.

Mello had lived far too much for his age.

"It's a notebook."

"What?" Mello quipped back, genuinely puzzled.

"Kira. It sounds crazy, and I didn't believe it at first, but he kills with a notebook. The leader of my group has all of the records from the detective who worked on the Kira case in the beginning. That detective, L, was killed by Kira, even though that fact was kept from the eye of the public. The leader of my group is the true heir to L."

It was Mello's turn to clutch at his phone, and his eyes went wide in shock. He remained quiet, though. It would do no good to reveal that he had known L. It would do even less good, as much as it pained him not to be able to scream at the realization, to reveal that he now knew who headed the SPK...at who now had Hal under his wing, and who was living under a title that he, himself would have shared had he have not given it up. It would only raise suspicion. "Go on," he said, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice.

"L found that there were at least two, and more likely, three Kiras over the course of the investigation, and that Kira's power could be passed on to whoever had possession of the notebook. The man L thought to be the third Kira was captured, and the notebook taken by the Japanese police. L suspected that there was still at least one more notebook in the world, and by the fact that he died not long after, in a manner that matched Kira's other killings, we can assume that he was right. To kill, one only has to write a person's name in the notebook, while picturing his or her face."

Mello was, by this time, pacing around his room at the hideout, clutching his cell phone in one hand with almost force enough to break it, running the other hand through his hair fitfully, and worrying a chocolate bar between his teeth. All Hal heard of any of this was the grinding sound coming across the line that she assumed was static, mixed with slightly muffled spats of, "Ridiculous. Absolutely fucking ridiculous." When the last of the chocolate bar had disappeared too fast for Mello's liking, he found that he was grinding his teeth instead, and chose to try and calm down enough to put together a proper response. "I'm finding it very hard to comprehend the idea of a notebook being able to kill people, but I am going to assume, for your sake, that you're not lying to me. If you were going to lie, I'd at least hope you'd do a better job of it."

"I'm not lying. I told you, I couldn't believe it at first, either, but if you want, I'm sure there's a way I could arrange to send you part of L's records as proof."

"It'd be very hard to assure the validity of the records, but, yes, I would appreciate that. You say that the Japanese police have possession of one of the notebooks?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Hal. That's exactly what I needed."

Mello hung up before Hal even had the chance to respond.

Before Mello's mind even had the time to process what he was doing, he was looking up any information he could find on the SPK.

It was too easy.

By the next day, the plan was already set.

At exactly 1:48 on Friday afternoon, Matt was sitting expectantly at the very back table of the café where he and Mello had agreed to meet. He noticed himself chewing absently on another burnt-out filter, and threw the thing in the ashtray with the others before lighting up his fourth since he'd arrived. He wasn't quite sure why he was so nervous, or why the usually calming act of smoking wasn't helping like it should have been.

He tried ordering his coffee early, instead, and figured that getting Mello's hot chocolate for him wouldn't hurt, either.

That just made everything worse, and he wasn't quite sure why.

Matt settled, instead, on staring languidly after the bum of one of the passing waitresses. The skirt of her uniform wasn't the most flattering he'd seen, but she was well-built enough that she could pull it off alright. The next that passed, one of a customer this time, wasn't nearly as nice, though her pants were fairly snug and it was easier to discern a form. When Matt noticed the stroller being pushed along in front of her, it was a little more obvious why, and he moved on.

Waiter. No.

The next was a barely covered thing on a skinny young girl that probably shouldn't have been wearing a miniskirt and a thong, and whose hand kept trying to pull the fabric down. After that came a pair of thin, swishing hips covered by fairly baggy jeans and bordered on the top by a stripe of exposed chocolate (Matt had to shake off thoughts of Mello with the internal mention of "chocolate") skin. Next to the hips were a pair of interlaced hands and what seemed to be the girl's boyfriend. They were extremely close together, like new lovers.

It may have seemed base and chauvinistic, but Matt had realized a while back that asses said a lot about the people who wore them. His goggles took away any peripheral vision he had, so he never looked at faces when he practiced his strange brand of people-watching. It wasn't just butts he did it with, though. One time, he tried feet, and found all sorts of interesting shoes and shuffling and strange gaits. Once, he tried to concentrate on hands alone, but found that it was hard with other body parts in the way. Shoulders tended to be interesting, and often had the added benefit of having breasts in their range of sight.

The next ass that walked into the door was far enough away to show that there were no breasts to accompany it, even though its movements were distinctly feminine, and the leather hugged the skin just closely enough to show off what was admittedly the hottest bum in the room, when the man who owned it turned toward the hostess.

Oh, God.

Matt put his head in his hands and groaned, in disbelief that he had just allowed himself a moment to ogle his best friend. It wasn't as if it meant anything, though. He and Mello had always been close, and it wasn't unheard of for close friends to allow themselves indulgences they wouldn't normally even think to allow with others.

Beside, it wasn't _his_ fault that Mello happened to have started dressing in a way that invited stares. Matt peeked out between his fingers at others in the room. It made him feel a bit better that even that girl and her boyfriend seemed to be staring.

He hid his face as the blond walked over.

Matt could feel Mello leaning over him.

"What are you hiding from, Matt? It isn't as if covering your eyes so you can't see me makes you invisible. Most children learn that at about the age of five. I'm very disappointed in you. Some genius you are."

"Mello, may I ask you a serious question?"

"Hm?"

"Why…that? The get-up?" The redhead flailed a little, running his finger up and down in a frantic line through the air.

When Matt looked up, he was extremely glad that he was the one Mello was talking to, since the other man had leaned over the table toward him, giving everyone behind him a pointedly admirable view. Mello was giving him one of those smarmy smiles of his, waiting for a reaction.

Matt just kind of pouted at him.

"You're cute, Matt," Mello said jokingly, poking at the redhead's forehead with one gloved finger. "I apologize if my appearance startled you. I know it's not something you're used to seeing from me, but I assure you that it's rather beneficial in my line of work. Shock is a great tool for getting things out of people. Information, loyalty…"

"I see."

Mello leaned in closer, and drawled out, "So, are you loyal yet?"

Matt backed into his vest, a little like a turtle receding into its shell. "Sit down, Mello, and stop hassling me. You're kind of freaking me out."

"There's no time to sit, I'm afraid. In fact, I need you to get up, and follow me."

"But…but, I got you cocoa," Matt murmured, gesturing to the cup a little pathetically.

The blond slammed one hand on the surface--which caused Matt to flinch a little--and picked up the mug and downed its contents in one gulp.

"Up," Mello commanded. "I need to talk to you without interference. I have a room lined up down the street."

"At the hotel?"

"Yes. Now, up."

Matt thought to make a witty quip, but decided better of it when he saw the impatient and deadpan stare he was receiving. Instead, he finished his coffee, dropped the filter of his cigarette in the ashtray, and watched Mello throw a twenty haphazardly onto the table and start to walk off, before he chanced to try following.

"You're awfully tetchy today," the redhead dared to say.

"I'll explain in a moment."

"Mmm-hmm," was all Matt said back.

They checked in with barely a word, and none between them, and when they found their room, Mello let Matt in, and then closed the auto-locking door behind them, leaning against it.

The redhead was about to open his mouth to say something, but didn't get the chance.

"I fucking hate Near," Mello spat.

"Oh," Matt said, knowingly, "So _that's_ what's got your panties in a bunch." He sat down on the bed and peered around the entry corner to where Mello was sulking. "We're out of Wammy's, so why are you so worried about the guy anyway? It's not like you're still fighting him to take L's place, right? Didn't that already get taken care of?"

"Only because I gave it to him."

"Right, because he really couldn't have done it on his own?" The redhead sighed.

Mello pushed off of the door and stormed farther into the room, stopping dangerously close to where Matt was sitting, hovering over the redhead like he was about to strike him.

"Go ahead, Mello. Hit me. I was just hoping that your little rivalry would have ended by now."

Mello shoved Matt back on the bed, leaning down as far as he could in a position of utter dominance. The younger found his face heating up, though he didn't want to try and figure out why. Mello almost growled. "I thought it was, too. For a little while, there, I had hoped I could be rid of him, but _no_. He had to go and get _her_ involved."

"Who? Near steal your girlfriend or something?"

The blond scoffed. "Halle Bullook. She was in the gang I joined after I left Wammy's. I used her to get over here, because she wanted to work for the government. And now, she's in Near's group."

"So," Matt drawled up, almost tauntingly, "basically, you let go of an ally, and Near snatched her up?"

Mello leaned down even farther, pressing his nose against Matt's, his glare deadly, as if a warning for the redhead to stop talking.

"Did he do it on purpose, even, or is it just your paranoia thinking the world's against you again?" Matt growled back, pushing his nose back up against the pointed one above him, crushing them both almost painfully.

"Fuck you," Mello growled, and then it seemed for a moment that it was over, because the blond had pushed himself up with an angry snarl.

He didn't get far.

Mello had gone from dangerously enraged, to something almost, but not quite akin to fear. His eyes had gone wide, his body stiffened. He stared down at Matt, frozen and afraid to move, the anger not quite faded from his eyes, but somewhat hidden under his tense surprise.

Matt sat up slowly, but his grip on the rosary tightened. He tugged lightly, and Mello followed the lead, unwilling to let extra pressure be put on the beaded strand. "You wouldn't," was all the blond said.

Matt tugged again, drawing Mello farther toward him. The blond stumbled, his body arched forward, one hand on Matt's shoulder to steady himself. Mello was hovering again, but it was Matt who had the control, although the redhead found a shiver escaping down his spine, in looking at his friend's stance.

Mello didn't move.

The redhead found his mind reeling, and then going suddenly blank, as a computer on automatic shutdown to protect him from some invisible virus. His hand unfurled of its own accord, and Mello backed up quickly, his hand clutching his rosary, his breath heavy as the gloved fingers ran up and down from his throat to his chest, like a man feeling for finger imprints after being choked.

"You're right. I wouldn't," Matt said, his voice and his expression empty, and it took a moment before he realized his arm was still hanging in midair, and he let it drop to the bed.

Mello internally cursed his rosary for presenting him with such an obvious and accessible weakness, and then decided better of it, and cursed himself with a sigh instead. Realizing that Matt was the only one who knew the rosary's importance to Mello well enough to think of that attack was strangely humbling, and he walked to the bed and sat down with a huff next to the other man. The two glanced at each other, and a bit of a silent apology could be read between them to anyone keen enough to look for it, and then they both stared down at their knees.

"I don't see how he could have possibly known," said the older, still running his hands over the rosary beads. "That's what's really getting me."

"How do you figure? Couldn't she have let it slip that she knows you? Could Near have sought that out in her?" Matt almost set a hand on Mello's shoulder, but wasn't sure how the blond would react, and let the hand hover inches above the man, instead. "Hey, listen. I'm sorry I was being an ass about the whole Near thing. That's some shit, him showing up like that again."

"Yeah." Mello, feeling Matt's hand close to him, chuckled. "You can touch me, you know. I'm not going to kill you if you do. Just because I'm in the Mafia now doesn't mean I've turned into a completely different person."

Feeling Matt's hand rest on his shoulder-blade, Mello relaxed.

He continued. "If Hal had let slip that she knew me, somebody would have asked _how_. Hal's relationship with me could have gotten her into a lot of trouble."

"Why's it so bad? She an older lady? Statutory or something like that?"

Mello went quite silent, closed his eyes for a second, and then leaned his head over to glare at Matt incredulously. "Not _that_ kind of relationship, Matt."

Matt laughed. "You sound almost offended. She ugly?"

"No…she's…" Mello groaned, putting his head in his hands with a chuckle. "You're getting me off-subject."

Matt's laughter got harder. "Okay, okay, I'll stop! Go on."

"Hal got into America by plane and some old money she'd been saving up. She got me in, too, by smuggling me in as her little brother."

"Whoa, didn't you say she was working for the government, now?"

"Exactly. Her record isn't exactly clean, and if anybody were to find out about me, she would doubtless face strong repercussions. I know she tried to keep it a secret, because she didn't go very deeply into the law enforcement to find me when I ran away. I left while she was at work one day, and as I knew she would go looking for me, I tracked her search progress, deleting any trace of my information in the system. She had no pictures of me, however, since I took my passport with me and destroyed it when I left. She never went above the local level, because any more was too much of a risk and, even then, she hid the progress under aliases and false claims. Halle Bullook is not a stupid woman."

"So I see," Matt said, seeming rather impressed. "She's pretty ballsy, too, doing something so illegal and then applying for a government position. I can see why you took a liking to her." The redhead mused to himself. "Her brother, huh? Well, if she looks anything like you, she can't be ugly. In fact, she's doubtless pretty hot…"

Mello stared, pulling a chocolate bar out of one pocket and taking a bite. Matt noticed the silence, and stared back. Mello cocked a brow at him.

The blond kept staring, but he pulled his phone from his pocket and held it out for Matt to take. The redhead took it with a nervous chuckle. "Uhm, what did I say I was gonna do to this, again? GPS and a speed-dial to me, yes?"

Mello nodded, taking another bite of his chocolate, and Matt suddenly wondered if he was holding it in his slightly-pursed lips and then twirling it around his mouth _just so_ on purpose. '_He does this for a living,_' Matt reminded himself. '_And what Mello does, he does well._'

Said lips decided to speak again, and Matt looked from them to the eyes above, which seemed to be following his gaze. "Do you still need to take the phone home? If so, I will simply wait here in the room until you return."

"No…no, I'm good. Equipment. Pockets. Since I knew I'd need it this time, you know."

"I was hoping you would say that." The blond's tone shifted into delegation. "Matt, I'm going to ask you a few favors, if that's alright?"

"Shoot." The younger started to pull things from his pocket, many of them nearly-microscopic pieces of equipment in small boxes that Mello realized had to have cost good money--most likely not honest money--to get a hold on, though he didn't say anything about it. Who was he to judge his friend? Matt took off his gloves and began work immediately.

"I found from Hal that a Kira taskforce within the Japanese police has one of the weapons that Kira uses to kill. Would you be able to hack them and keep a track of their information for me, and send me anything you find? Be sure to stay anonymous, though. I'll know it's you."

"Yeah. Can-do. Do you need me to get into Near's group for you?"

"No, I already have that taken care of. I've gone behind Near's back, and Hal's, and acquired a different spy within the ranks. I cross-checked the information that Hal gave me, and it all cleared. To keep Hal safe, I have been using this spy, instead of her, to get what I need."

Matt nodded, but was otherwise concentrating on his work. "Good deal. I'll get you the first thing on the Japanese police ASAP. What am I looking for?"

"A notebook."

"…" Matt paused in his work for just the slightest moment, and then went back to it, trying not to be phased.

"I'm serious."

"I believe you. It's just hard to get my head around."

"I know."

"But at least it's not so hard to see why they didn't think of it earlier."

Mello chuckled, and that was that.

"How's it used? The notebook."

"You write a person's name in it, while imagining his or her face."

"A bit too simple for comfort. That's some creepy shit. Wonder how Kira managed to get a hold of that one."

"I don't think I want to know where he got it." Mello shook his head. "Especially not considering there are supposed to be more than one. I don't want to think that these things could be mass-produced. Too easy to get into the wrong hands."

"No kidding."

Mello watched Matt finish putting in the tiny GPS with an equally tiny soldering iron and tweezers, and then put the pieces of the phone back together, though he didn't fully reassemble the casing. He then pulled out what looked to be a PDA with a small keyboard attached to it, and hooked it directly into the phone's circuitry as he turned both electronics on. He began to type rapidly into the PDA.

"You don't mind my watching you over your shoulder, do you? It's interesting to see you work."

Matt chuckled. "You're interested in what I'm doing? What is it? The Two wants to take notes from the Number Three?"

Mello smacked the redhead's shoulder lightly. "It isn't that. I just like to see your style."

The younger smirked at that, and continued to work. His body almost locked up, but he stopped himself from reacting too much when Mello climbed up fully behind him and set his chin on his shoulder.

"Getting nostalgic, are we?" Matt asked playfully.

Mello wrapped his arms around Matt's midsection, and nodded into his shoulder. "I can almost imagine we're back home, like this."

"You still think of it as home, too, huh? I'm glad I'm not the only one."

It almost felt wrong to be there, Mello thought to himself, feeling the hard leather in between his body and Matt's back; feeling the weight of the still-unloaded Beretta in the lining of his jacket. There was something wonderful about it, in the warmth and the childlike comfort of it all, but it was wrong of him--he wasn't sure if it was because he was enjoying, too much, the feeling of Matt against him, or because he had started, suddenly, to truly hate his task and to want to leave it all behind for this simplicity--and when Matt stopped typing on the PDA, and he closed the casing of the phone and handed it back to the blond's hands on his stomach, the touch of the electronic was a reminder of everything he had to lose if he gave up, and his body stiffened into Matt's, erasing the comfort and the feeling of Home.

He stood without a word, and Matt, who had shivered at the touch, did so doubly at its absence.

"The number's 6288," the redhead said quietly, pointing to the phone.

"That's just your name. M.A.T.T."

"Hey, I'm going for simple, but effective. It's not as if it's anywhere but in your head, and not like they know who I am. I have it programmed to not show up in your dialed calls list if you lose it, anyway, so it's completely untraceable…" Matt smirked, "_and _really easy to remember."

The blond simply nodded, and then everything changed.

Mello's face had gone expressionless, his body taking a purposely domineering pose that looked foreign to the green eyes watching it, and he replied in a cold voice, his natural accent almost hidden under a layer of cold, careful control, "I should go now."

There wasn't a "goodbye". Not a single trace of friendship left in the blond's eyes, and it frightened Matt a little to know that this was doubtless the look Mello gave to the men in the Mafia.

The look was terrifying. Suddenly, his Mello from Wammy's that didn't look right in the leathers and the feathers was gone, replaced with a man with such confidence and such a frightening amount of power in his eyes that Matt had to look away to not shy away from him. Mello looked like a man who could kill. Mello looked like a man who could manipulate without blinking. Mello looked like a man who could bring you to your knees and make you beg for mercy.

Mello fit into everything on his body, now, with such ease…everything but the rosary he'd worn since he was six and that was more a part of him than any of it.

It was that rosary which gave Matt the courage to look at him again. The knowledge that the beads and the crucifix and everything that they stood for were still there, and still just as important as they'd always been--important enough to stop the blond dead in his tracks when they were threatened--was what let Matt stop him from just leaving.

At the light touch on his arm, it was all gone again, and Mello couldn't help but to soften.

"One more thing, before you go," said Matt, very quietly. "I don't know when I'm gonna get to see you again. A part of me that I wish would go away keeps reminding me that you could die anytime, and that I may never get to, and this is something I think needs to be said."

"Alright," was Mello's short reply, but the harshness really had slipped away.

"I know this is dangerous, but if you're Kira, I'd rather you kill me, because I wouldn't want to take it. It's dangerous, but it needs to be said."

"What is it, Matt?"

"It's always kind of upset me, Mello, that Wammy…No, Watari--I don't think he has the right to have what he denied us--never let us use our real names. It's as if our real names died when our parents did."

"You want to know my name."

"You don't have to tell me, if you're afraid, or if you just don't want to…but I…I wanna tell you mine."

Mello's shoulders relaxed, and he allowed himself a smile.

Matt sighed. "It's Mail. My real name's Mail Jeevas." He seemed to sink into himself a little. "I know it's a funny name, but…"

"Thank you."

Matt smiled back at the shy one Mello was giving him, and seemed to expect the older man to leave, but he didn't.

"My real name is Mello," said the blond. "As far as I'm concerned, Wammy was right. My original name practically did die with my parents. L gave me that name. You called me that name all through our childhood. It's as much my name as the one that was on the birth certificate they burned when I came to the House."

Matt's eyes went a little sad at that, but he nodded, understanding.

"My parents, however, named me Mihael, and though the little boy with that name hurts to think about sometimes…he's really never left me. Mihael Keehl…that was his name."

"Mihael…" The name came out almost breathless on the redhead's tongue. "Mihael Keehl," as if he were testing it; feeling it.

Mello leaned in, grasping the redhead's shoulders and whispering into his ear. It was actually more intimidating than it was friendly, and Matt got a glimpse of a mental image of Mello shooting him in the foot.

"I will call you as soon as I am next able," Mello said, his breath ghosting over Matt's ear. "Always keep your phone on. Assume that I could call at any time."

"Right. What about when you do call?" the hacker whispered back, the position putting him right in Mello's hearing, too.

"When I do, you will give me a cut-and-dry report on your progress, and nothing more. When we are done speaking, you may save my number into your phone so that it registers as me when I call, but does not show up otherwise in the phone. You will never use this number to call me back. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"When I have the information I need from you, it will no longer be safe to call you, until our plans are followed through."

Matt didn't reply to that.

"I'm sorry, Matt. Thank you for doing this."

"Yeah." The younger gulped a little. "I am gonna see you again, right?"

"Once we catch Kira, I'm going to get out of all of this, and I'll come find you."

Matt's head dropped, and his face buried itself in the crook of Mello's neck. "You had better," was what the redhead murmured back to that, and he could feel Mello squeeze his shoulders lightly before pulling away.

"I'll see you soon, Mail Jeevas."

And he was gone.


End file.
